No evidence of inbreeding depression in sperm performance traits in wild song sparrows.

ABSTRACT: Inbreeding is widely hypothesized to shape mating systems and population persistence, but such effects will depend on which traits show inbreeding depression. Population and evolutionary consequences could be substantial if inbreeding decreases sperm performance and hence decreases male fertilization success and female fertility. However, the magnitude of inbreeding depression in sperm performance traits has rarely been estimated in wild populations experiencing natural variation in inbreeding. Further, the hypothesis that inbreeding could increase within-ejaculate variation in sperm traits and thereby further affect male fertilization success has not been explicitly tested. We used a wild pedigreed song sparrow (Melospiza melodia) population, where frequent extrapair copulations li

SUBMITTER: Losdat S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5792576 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature