Sperm is a sexual ornament in rose bitterling
Abstract
In many taxa, odour cues mediate mating decisions. A key question is what these odours comprise, where they are produced, and what they signal. Using rose bitterling, fish that spawn in the gills of freshwater mussels, we investigated the role of sperm cues on female oviposition decisions using individuals of known MHC genotype. Male bitterling frequently released sperm prior to female oviposition and females responded with an increased probability of oviposition and released a greater number of eggs, particularly if males had a dissimilar MHC genotype. These mating preferences by females were shown to be adaptive, with MHC dissimilarity of males and females correlated positively with embryo survival. These results support a role for indirect benefits to rose bitterling mate choice and we propose that sperm acts as a releaser pheromone in bitterling, functioning as a sexual ornament signalling male quality as a mate.
Citation
Smith , C H , Spence , R G A & Reichard , M 2018 , ' Sperm is a sexual ornament in rose bitterling ' , Journal of Evolutionary Biology , vol. Early View . https://doi.org/10.1111/jeb.13357
Publication
Journal of Evolutionary Biology
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1010-061XType
Journal article
Rights
© 2018, European Society for Evolutionary Biology. This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created accepted version manuscript following peer review and as such may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1111/jeb.13357
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