23 October 2013
When it comes to paternity success in salmon it’s the speed of sperm that counts, according to a collaborative study by researchers from The University of Western Australia and the University of Otago in New Zealand.
Lead researcher, Professor Jon Evans from the UWA Centre for Evolutionary Biology said that although sperm competition is rife among sexually reproducing species, “we know little about the factors that determine which sperm successfully fertilise eggs”. In the study published today in the Proceedings of The Royal Society B, the researchers applied a new experimental framework to an externally fertilising model in order to delineate the roles of males, females and their interactive effects on fertilisation success under competition.
Read the full story on the UWA website.