Haploid selection within a single ejaculate increases offspring fitness

Alavioon, Ghazal, Hotzy, Cosima, Nakhro, Khriezhanuo, Rudolf, Sandra, Scofield, Douglas G., Zajitschek, Susanne, Maklakov, Alexei A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5809-1203 and Immler, Simone (2017) Haploid selection within a single ejaculate increases offspring fitness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), 114 (30). 8053–8058. ISSN 0027-8424

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Abstract

An inescapable consequence of sex in eukaryotes is the evolution of a biphasic life cycle with alternating diploid and haploid phases. The occurrence of selection during the haploid phase can have far-reaching consequences for fundamental evolutionary processes including the rate of adaptation, the extent of inbreeding depression, and the load of deleterious mutations, as well as for applied research into fertilization technology. Although haploid selection is well established in plants, current dogma assumes that in animals, intact fertile sperm within a single ejaculate are equivalent at siring viable offspring. Using the zebrafish Danio rerio, we show that selection on phenotypic variation among intact fertile sperm within an ejaculate affects offspring fitness. Longer-lived sperm sired embryos with increased survival and a reduced number of apoptotic cells, and adult male offspring exhibited higher fitness. The effect on embryo viability was carried over into the second generation without further selection and was equally strong in both sexes. Sperm pools selected by motile phenotypes differed genetically at numerous sites throughout the genome. Our findings clearly link within-ejaculate variation in sperm phenotype to offspring fitness and sperm genotype in a vertebrate and have major implications for adaptive evolution.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: biphasic life cycle,sperm selection,sperm genotype,sexual reproduction,gametic selection
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science > School of Biological Sciences
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Organisms and the Environment
Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation
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Depositing User: Pure Connector
Date Deposited: 02 Aug 2017 05:06
Last Modified: 27 Nov 2024 10:20
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/64322
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1705601114

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