Male diet affects female fitness and sperm competition in human- and bat-associated lineages of the common bedbug, Cimex lectularius.

ABSTRACT: Sperm performance can vary in ecologically divergent populations, but it is often not clear whether the environment per se or genomic differences arising from divergent selection cause the difference. One powerful and easily manipulated environmental effect is diet. Populations of bedbugs (Cimex lectularius) naturally feed either on bat or human blood. These are diverging genetically into a bat-associated and a human-associated lineage. To measure how male diet affects sperm performance, we kept males of two HL and BL populations each on either their own or the foreign diet. Then we investigated male reproductive success in a single mating and sperm competition context. We found that male diet affected female fecundity and changed the outcome of sperm competition, at least in the human lin

SUBMITTER: Kremenova J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8324850 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature