Why do females across a wide range of taxa mate with more than one male? Here, I present the hypothesis that females engage in polyandry as a hedge against genetic incompatibility. I review evidence from the literature showing that the genomes of species are dynamic entities, constantly evolving as a consequence of genetic conflicts within and between the nucleus and the cytoplasm. Cellular endosymbionts, segregation distorter alleles, transposable elements and genomically-imprinted genes can all threaten female fitness by modifying maternal and paternal haplotypes in ways that render them incompatible within the developing embryo. I discuss the potential for polyandrous females to utilize postcopulatory mechanisms such as sperm competition, female choice of sperm, and reallocation of maternal resources from defective to viable embryos in order to minimize the risk and/or cost of fertilization by genetically-incompatible sperm. In a sperm precedence experiment carried out on the pseudoscorpion, Cordylochernes scorpioides, single-locus minisatellite DNA fingerprinting demonstrated strong last-male sperm precedence when females were mated to two males which broke down completely when females were mated to three males. This result indicates that the opportunity for postcopulatory sexual selection may be much greater in nature than is evident from standard, laboratory, two-male mating experiments. Polyandry in this pseudoscorpion is shown to be a deliberate strategy which increases reproductive success. In laboratory experiments, females restricted to mating with a single male experienced a higher rate of embryo failure and produced significantly fewer offspring than either females mated to more than one male in the laboratory or females naturally inseminated in the field. Previously proposed hypotheses such as forced copulation, insufficient sperm from a single mating, male nutrient donations, offspring genetic diversity and inherent male genetic quality cannot explain this higher reproductive success of polyandrous females. Observations of meiotic drive, highly-skewed sex ratios and paternal effects on sex ratio in this pseudoscorpion are consistent with the hypothesis that, by accumulating sperm from several males, C. scorpioides females reduce the number of embryos which fail as a consequence of genetic incompatibility between maternal and paternal genomes.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:RICE/oai:scholarship.rice.edu:1911/16945 |
| Date | January 1996 |
| Creators | Zeh, Jeanne Anne |
| Contributors | Strassmann, Joan E. |
| Source Sets | Rice University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Text |
| Format | 101 p., application/pdf |
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