Evolution of larger sperm in response to experimentally increased sperm competition in Caenorhabditis elegans
Evolution of larger sperm in response to experimentally increased sperm competition in Caenorhabditis elegans
复制标题
DOI：
10.1098/rspb.2002.1996
复制
发表时间：
2002-06-07
影响因子：
4.7
通讯作者：
Ward, S
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
LaMunyon, CW;Ward, S
精子形态进化迅速，导致动物门中精子大小和形状的异常多样性。这种快速的进化被认为是阻止了密切相关的物种之间的受精。另一方面，最近的相关分析表明，来自多个男性的精子之间的竞争可能会导致精子多样性，但这些假设尚未得到验证。在这里，我们测试实验精子竞争的影响，精子大小的进化使用线虫秀丽隐杆线虫。这种蠕虫有三天的世代时间，这使得研究涵盖了许多代。精子体积增加近20%，超过60代的线遗传诱导有高水平的精子竞争相比，控制线。这些结果表明，精子竞争可以并确实导致精子的形态进化，因此，可以解释精子形态的多样性。
Sperm morphology evolves rapidly, resulting in an exceptional diversity of sperm size and shape across animal phyla. This swift evolution has been thought to prevent fertilizations between closely related species. Alternatively, recent correlative analyses suggest that competition among sperm from more than one male may cause sperm diversity, but these hypotheses have not been tested. Here, we test experimentally the effect of sperm competition on sperm-size evolution using the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. This worm has a three day generation time, which allowed the study to cover many generations. Sperm volume increased nearly 20% over 60 generations in lines genetically induced to have high levels of sperm competition compared with those of control lines. These results show that sperm competition can and does cause morphological evolution of sperm and, therefore, can explain much of the diversity in sperm morphology.