Specificity of the female's local cellular immune response in genital plug producing scorpion species.

ABSTRACT: Immune defense is a key feature in the life history of organisms, expensive to maintain, highly regulated by individuals and exposed to physiological and evolutionary trade-offs. In chelicerates, relatively scarce are the studies that relate postcopulatory mechanisms and immune response parameters. This work makes an approximation to the female's immunological consequences produced after the placement of a foreign body in the genitalia of three scorpions species, two species that normally receive genital plugs during mating (Urophonius brachycentrus and U. achalensis) and one that does not (Zabius fuscus). Here we performed the first morphological description of the natural plugs of the two Urophonius species. We described complex three zoned structure anchored to the female genital atrium

SUBMITTER: Oviedo-Diego MA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6370188 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature