Female feral fowl eject sperm of subdominant males

T. Pizzari () and T. R. Birkhead
Additional contact information
T. Pizzari: University of Sheffield
T. R. Birkhead: University of Sheffield

Nature, 2000, vol. 405, issue 6788, 787-789

Abstract: Abstract Paternity is often determined by competition between the ejaculates of different males1. Males can also use particular behaviours or structures to manipulate how females use sperm2,3,4,5. However, the ability of females to bias sperm utilization in favour of preferred males independently of male manipulation has not been demonstrated6. Females are predicted to respond differentially to the sperm of different males when the reproductive interests of the sexes differ and when females are coerced into copulating4,6. Here we show that in female feral fowl most copulations are coerced, and that females consistently bias sperm retention in favour of the preferred male phenotype. Females prefer to copulate with dominant males, but when sexually coerced by subordinate males, they manipulate the behaviour of dominant males to reduce the likelihood of insemination. If this fails, females differentially eject ejaculates according to male status in the absence of any male manipulation and preferentially retain the sperm of dominant males.

Date: 2000
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/35015558 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:405:y:2000:i:6788:d:10.1038_35015558

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/35015558

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().