Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
J Evol Biol. 2013 Jun;26(6):1261-8. doi: 10.1111/jeb.12118. Epub 2013 Mar 21.
Recent evidence shows that females exert a post-copulatory fertilization bias in favour of unrelated males to avoid the genetic incompatibilities derived from inbreeding. One of the mechanisms suggested for fertilization biases in insects is female control over transport of sperm to the sperm-storage organs. We investigated post-copulatory inbreeding-avoidance mechanisms in females of the cricket Teleogryllus oceanicus. We assessed the relative contribution of related and unrelated males to the sperm stores of double-mated females. To demonstrate unequivocally that biased sperm storage results from female control rather than cryptic male choice, we manipulated the relatedness of mated males and of males performing post-copulatory mate guarding. Our results show that when guarded by a related male, females store less sperm from their actual mate, irrespective of the relatedness of the mating male. Our data support the notion that inhibition of sperm storage by female crickets can act as a form of cryptic female choice to avoid the severe negative effects of inbreeding.
最近的证据表明，雌性在交配后会偏向于与无亲缘关系的雄性受精，以避免因近亲繁殖而产生的遗传不兼容。昆虫中受精偏向的一种机制是雌性对精子向精子储存器官运输的控制。我们研究了蟋蟀 Teleogryllus oceanicus 雌性的交配后避免近亲繁殖的机制。我们评估了相关和不相关雄性对双交配雌性精子库的相对贡献。为了明确证明偏向的精子储存是由于雌性控制而不是隐性雄性选择，我们操纵了交配雄性和进行交配后配偶保护的雄性的亲缘关系。我们的结果表明，当被相关雄性保护时，雌性会减少来自实际配偶的精子储存，而不管交配雄性的亲缘关系如何。我们的数据支持这样一种观点，即抑制雌性蟋蟀的精子储存可以作为一种隐性雌性选择的形式，以避免近亲繁殖的严重负面影响。
