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Postcopulatory sexual selection favours intrinsically good sperm competitors

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Abstract

We used guppies to study repeatability in sperm competitiveness and postcopulatory sexual selection on male ornamentation. In a block design involving 25 pairs of males, artificial insemination was used to mate each pair (A and B) to four unrelated females—two that were mated with the combined ejaculates of both males (sperm-competition treatment) and two receiving sperm from each of the two males individually (single-male treatment). Our analysis revealed significantly repeatable patterns of paternity across females in the sperm-competition treatment, suggesting that certain males are intrinsically better sperm competitors than others, irrespective of female identity. Next, we compared mean brood success (number of offspring per brood) between sperm competition and single-male treatments. We found no significant effect of treatment on female fecundity, suggesting that the previously reported direct benefits of polyandry in this species may be due to factors such as differential maternal effects or differences in the number of inseminated sperm between treatments. Our artificial insemination assay was designed to control both factors. Finally, we determined whether variation in relative paternity was random with respect to male phenotype. Unlike previous work on Trinidadian populations, we found no significant relationship between male sexual ornamentation and sperm competitiveness in the focal population.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Megan Head for help with colour scoring, Jennifer Kelley and Lee Ann Rollins for assistance with fish husbandry, Robert Black for statistical advice and Leigh Simmons, Jennifer Kelley and two anonymous referees for helpful comments on the manuscript. Thanks also to Rob Brooks for discussion, logistic support and access to facilities while at the University of New South Wales. JPE gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Australian Research Council.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Evolutionary Biology, School of Animal Biology, University of Western Australia, Nedlands, 6009, Australia

    Jonathan P. Evans

  2. School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Kensington, 2052, Australia

    Alison N. Rutstein

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  1. Jonathan P. Evans
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  2. Alison N. Rutstein
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Correspondence to Jonathan P. Evans.

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Communicated by C. St. Mary

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Evans, J.P., Rutstein, A.N. Postcopulatory sexual selection favours intrinsically good sperm competitors. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 62, 1167–1173 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-008-0545-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-008-0545-0

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