In salmon, the sperm of competing males face off in an all-or-nothing race to be the first to reach and fertilise the eggs. Photo / 123RF
In salmon, the sperm of competing males face off in an all-or-nothing race to be the first to reach and fertilise the eggs. Photo / 123RF
Kiwi scientists have revealed how females in one species can influence which competing sperm make it to their eggs first - with possible implications for understanding our own reproduction system.
In salmon, the sperm of competing males face off in an all-or-nothing race to be the first to reach and fertilise the eggs.
Yet female salmon can sway the race results from afar, with what a team of researchers have demonstrated to be a strong genetic basis.
One of the authors of the study, Professor Neil Gemmell of Otago University's Department of Anatomy, said the ovarian fluid that females release with their eggs can help or hinder sperm swiftness, depending on the male it comes from.
"The findings may also have implications for the understanding of animal, even human, reproduction."
Gemmell's PhD student, Cornelia Gessner, with colleagues from AgResearch and Niwa, examined the swimming speeds of salmon sperm in the diluted ovarian fluids of females and related this to reproductive success and the level of genetic relatedness at several thousand genes.
Surprisingly, the team found that males that were more similar to the female at a few key genes, perhaps even close relatives to the females, had a higher rate of reproductive success than males who were more dissimilar.
"Our recent work has shown that this 'cryptic female choice' (CFC) has a strong effect on offspring survival," Gemmell said.
"In this latest paper we have identified key genetic components that seem to be responsible for governing this process."
Cryptic female choice involved female attempts to control who fertilises their eggs after mating, and was known to occur in many species but, until now, only in ones which fertilised internally.
"In internal fertilisers there are multiple ways a female can exert this post-mating version of sexual selection by favouring one male's sperm over another to bias fertilisation, including differential storage, usage and ejection of sperm," he said.
"A classic example is found in chickens, where females can favour one male over another through ejecting the sperm of less favoured males.
"We were startled to find that female salmon are also able to exert this kind of influence."
"The findings may also have implications for the understanding of animal, even human, reproduction," Otago University scientist Professor Neil Gemmell says. Photo / File
Previously, it had been thought that once their eggs had been released females had very little say over which of the males around her would fertilise them.
"That is clearly not the case. There is a strong post-mating choice exerted, which affects offspring survival, and there is a genetic basis that affects this choice.
"We found that the speed of a male's sperm varied significantly, according to which female's ovarian fluid it was swimming in, and that the degree of genetic relatedness between females and males strongly influences sperm swimming speed and fertilisation outcomes.
"We found five regions in the salmon genome, each containing a few genes, that appear to bias fertilisation outcomes by influencing how fast a male's sperm swims in a given female's ovarian fluid and that affect fertilisation outcomes via other mechanisms, likely sperm-egg interactions."
Two of the genes identified affected fertility in humans and were promising candidates through which CFC may operate, he said.
For example, a particular male's sperm was among the fastest in one set of fluid but, in another set, it trailed the field.
In the latter set, a different male's sperm was able to swim twice as fast as it had in another.
The reason why female salmon try to swing the odds for some sperm over others appeared to be focused on ensuring that their mates have complimentary genes that enhance offspring survival.
"From the female's perspective, it makes sense that when you only have one opportunity to reproduce in your life, you want to make sure you get it right.
"For the males, you could say that the upshot is that there may be someone for everyone in the salmon world - the race does not always go to the naturally fastest runner, as females ensure that the conditions on the racecourse differ.
"Put another way, what we have found is that only some males have the right genetic passwords that enable their sperm to fertilise the eggs of a given female."
The implications for our own reproduction were intriguing.
"For instance, whatever it is in this ovarian fluid that is enhancing or retarding sperm function may have a similar effect on sperm in other species.
"The recognition that some of the genes that control this effect in salmon are also present in humans, and linked to infertility in humans, strongly suggests that there may be elements of cryptic female choice post-mating in humans."
Gemmell planned to continue to investigate the genes involved in the phenomenon, and further explore if similar mechanisms might exist in humans and species of agricultural importance.
The research, supported by a $870,000 Marsden Fund grant, has been published in major international journal Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B.
