Publication Date:
2005-09-24
Description:
The notion that a trade-off exists between immunity and reproduction is now a central concept in theories of sexual selection. However, whether such a trade-off exists between immunity and gamete viability has not been established. Here we show that genetic variance for high levels of an immune response required to fight bacterial infections is associated with genetic variance for low sperm viability. These data have implications for our understanding of sexual selection mechanisms and of reproductive costs in male longevity.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Simmons, Leigh W -- Roberts, Benjamin -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2005 Sep 23;309(5743):2031.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Evolutionary Biology Research Group, School of Animal Biology (M092), University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia. lsimmons@cyllene.uwa.edu.au〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16179472" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
Cell Survival
;
Female
;
Genetic Variation
;
Gryllidae/genetics/*immunology/*physiology
;
Hemocytes/immunology
;
Immunity, Cellular
;
Male
;
Micrococcus/*immunology
;
Muramidase/metabolism
;
Phenotype
;
Reproduction
;
Spermatozoa/*physiology
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
