Zoological Institute, University of Hamburg, Martin-Luther-King-Platz 3, 20146 Hamburg, Germany.
Evolution. 2012 Jan;66(1):31-9. doi: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2011.01406.x. Epub 2011 Aug 7.
Mating plugs are male-derived structures that may impede female remating by physically obstructing the female genital tract. Although mating plugs exist in many taxa, the forces shaping their evolution are poorly understood. A male can clearly benefit if his mating plug secures his paternity. It is unclear, however, how plug efficacy can be maintained over evolutionary time in the face of counteracting selection on males' ability to remove any plugs placed by their rivals. Here, I present a game-theory model and a simulation model to address this problem. The models predict that evolutionarily stable levels of mating-plug efficacy should be high when (1) the number of mating attempts per female is low; (2) the sex ratio is male-biased, and (3) males are sperm-limited. I discuss these results in the light of empirical data.
交配栓是雄性衍生的结构，可能通过物理阻塞雌性生殖道来阻碍雌性再次交配。尽管交配栓存在于许多分类群中，但它们的进化驱动力仍知之甚少。如果雄性的交配栓能确保其亲代身份，那么雄性显然会从中受益。然而，在面对雄性去除其竞争对手所放置的任何交配栓的能力的反向选择时，如何在进化时间内维持栓的有效性尚不清楚。在这里，我提出了一个博弈论模型和一个模拟模型来解决这个问题。这些模型预测，当（1）每个雌性的交配尝试次数较少；（2）性别比例偏向雄性；以及（3）雄性受精子限制时，交配栓有效性的进化稳定水平应该较高。我根据经验数据讨论了这些结果。
