Journal
BMC EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
Volume 14, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
BMC
DOI: 10.1186/1471-2148-14-79
Keywords
Pre-copulatory competition; Post-copulatory competition; Secondary sexual traits; Sexual selection; Sperm competition; Weapon length
Categories
Funding
- scholarship for postgraduate studies (Obra Social Fundacio La Caixa)
- VetAgro Sup
- Fyssen Foundation, Paris
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Background: In most species, males compete to gain both matings (via pre-copulatory competition) and fertilizations (via post-copulatory competition) to maximize their reproductive success. However, the quantity of resources devoted to sexual traits is finite, and so males are predicted to balance their investment between pre- and post-copulatory expenditure depending on the expected pay-offs that should vary according to mating tactics. In Artiodactyla species, males can invest in weapons such as horns or antlers to increase their mating gains or in testes mass/sperm dimensions to increase their fertilization efficiency. Moreover, it has been suggested that in these species, males with territory defence mating tactic might preferentially increase their investment in post-copulatory traits to increase their fertilization efficiency whereas males with female defence mating tactic might increase their investment in pre-copulatory sexually selected traits to prevent other males from copulating with females. In this study, we thus test the prediction that male's weapon length (pre-copulatory trait) covaries negatively with relative testes size and/or sperm dimensions (post-copulatory traits) across Artiodactyla using a phylogenetically controlled framework. Results: Surprisingly no association between weapon length and testes mass is found but a negative association between weapon length and sperm length is evidenced. In addition, neither pre- nor post-copulatory traits were found to be affected by male mating tactics. Conclusions: We propose several hypotheses that could explain why male ungulates may not balance their reproductive investment between pre- and post-copulatory traits.
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