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      Male medaka continue to mate with females despite sperm depletion

      research-article
      1 , 2 , , 1 , 2 , 1 , 2
      Royal Society Open Science
      The Royal Society
      sperm depletion, fertilization rate, mating behaviour, medaka, Oryzias latipes

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          Abstract

          In animals where males engage in multiple matings, sperm depletion can substantially reduce the reproductive success of both sexes. However, little is known about how successive matings affect sperm depletion, fertilization rates and mating behaviour. Here, we investigated this phenomenon under laboratory conditions. Medaka ( Oryzias latipes), an externally fertilizing fish, is an ideal model to test predictions of sperm depletion because there are established methods to observe its mating and count sperm. Medaka males mated with multiple females (19 per day, on average; range, 4–27), experiencing significant sperm depletion, with sperm release declining markedly after the first few matings, reaching only 0.5–6.3% by the last mating of the day. Fertilization rates decreased, particularly after approximately 10 consecutive matings, although there was some recovery in the next-day’s matings. The decline in courtship effort and mating duration probably resulted from the males becoming increasingly fatigued. Despite the reduced sperm availability, females did not adjust their clutch size as a counterstrategy. These results suggest substantial reproductive costs for males and the potential for sexual conflict owing to limited sperm availability. For species with frequent successive mating, these findings highlight the need to reconsider reproductive strategies and their impact on sexual selection.

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          Most cited references71

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          Sperm competition, male prudence and sperm-limited females

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            Ejaculate Cost and Male Choice

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              High-quality male field crickets invest heavily in sexual display but die young.

              Only high-quality males can bear the costs of an extreme sexual display. As a consequence, such males are not only more attractive, but they often live longer than average. Recent theory predicts, however, that high-quality males should sometimes invest so heavily in sexual displays that they die sooner than lower quality males. We manipulated the phenotypic quality of field crickets, Teleogryllus commodus, by altering the protein content of their diet. Here we show that nymphs and adult females reared on a high-protein diet lived longer than those on a low-protein diet. In contrast, adult males reared on a high-protein diet died sooner than those on low-protein diets because they invested more energy in calling during early adulthood. Our findings uphold the theoretical prediction that the relationship between longevity and sexual advertisement may be dynamic (that is, either positive or negative), depending on local conditions such as resource availability. Moreover, they caution the use of longevity as a proxy for fitness in sexual selection studies, and suggest avenues for future research on the relationship between sexual attractiveness and ageing.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Formal analysisRole: Funding acquisitionRole: InvestigationRole: MethodologyRole: ResourcesRole: SoftwareRole: VisualizationRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review and editing
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Funding acquisitionRole: Project administrationRole: SupervisionRole: ValidationRole: Writing – review and editing
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Formal analysisRole: Funding acquisitionRole: Project administrationRole: ResourcesRole: SupervisionRole: ValidationRole: VisualizationRole: Writing – review and editing
                Journal
                R Soc Open Sci
                R Soc Open Sci
                RSOS
                royopensci
                Royal Society Open Science
                The Royal Society
                2054-5703
                January 2025
                January 8, 2025
                January 8, 2025
                : 12
                : 1
                : 241668
                Affiliations
                [ 1 ]Laboratory of Animal Sociology, Department of Biology, Graduate School of Science, Osaka City University; , Osaka 558-8585, Japan
                [ 2 ]Laboratory of Animal Sociology, Department of Biology, Graduate School of Science, Osaka Metropolitan University; , Osaka 558-8585, Japan
                Author notes

                Electronic supplementary material is available online at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.7581576.

                Author information
                https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1481-6225
                https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9598-0088
                https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3254-7943
                Article
                rsos241668
                10.1098/rsos.241668
                11706666
                39780977
                99f04610-eddd-40a5-b45c-e10ca8dedaf3
                © 2025 The Author(s).

                Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : September 25, 2024
                : November 25, 2024
                : November 26, 2024
                Funding
                Funded by: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001691;
                Funded by: Osaka City University Strategic Research Promotion Project;
                Categories
                1001
                14
                Organismal and Evolutionary Biology
                Research Articles

                sperm depletion,fertilization rate,mating behaviour,medaka,oryzias latipes

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