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Evolutionary biology

Scramble for the eggs

Nature volume 426, pages 22–23 (2003)Cite this article

Copulating cockerels can, it seems, tailor their ejaculate to several factors: the degree of male competition, whether they have mated with the female before, and the female's reproductive 'value'.

Sperm competition — in which the sperm from more than one male compete to fertilize a female's eggs1 — is often the final stage in the long struggle for males to reproduce their genes. It's therefore not surprising that it has favoured some remarkable male reproductive traits2. One general adaptation is the production of astronomical numbers of tiny sperm, because a fundamental mechanism of sperm competition follows the scenario of a raffle: the males that ejaculate the most sperm are more likely to succeed3. But sperm production is not limitless, so males cannot perpetually achieve numerical superiority. Other tricks must be used. For instance, as Pizzari et al.4 describe on page 70 of this issue, cockerels show “unprecedented sophistication” in balancing the need to achieve numerical dominance in sperm competitions, while operating within a limited budget. At each mating, male fowl are sensitive to local social and sexual cues: they produce an ejaculate that is optimized to the level of sperm competition and the female's reproductive value, and which is balanced against their own sperm budget.

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  1. School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK

    Matthew J. G. Gage

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Gage, M. Scramble for the eggs. Nature 426, 22–23 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/426022a

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