The ejaculates of most internally fertilizing species consists of both sperm and seminal fluid proteins. Seminal fluid proteins have been studied largely in relation to their post-mating effects on female reproductive physiology, and predominantly in genomically well-characterized species. Seminal fluids can also play important roles in sperm maturation and performance. In the field cricket Teleogryllus oceanicus the viability of ejaculated sperm increases as males age, as does their competitive fertilization success. Here, using quantitative proteomics and quantitative real-time PCR, we document ontogenetic changes in seminal fluid protein abundance and in seminal fluid gene expression. We identified at least nine proteins that changed in abundance in the seminal fluid of crickets as they aged. Gene expression was quantified for five seminal fluid protein genes, and in four of these gene expression changed as males aged. These ontogenetic changes were associated with a general increase in the size of the male accessory glands. Several of the seminal fluid proteins that we have identified are novel, and some have BLAST matches to proteins implicated in sperm function. Our data suggest that age related changes in competitive fertilization success may be dependent on seminal fluid chemistry.

Recent studies have suggested that males may vary the quality of their ejaculates in response to sperm competition, although the mechanisms by which they do so remain unclear. The viability of sperm is an important aspect of ejaculate quality that determines competitive fertilization success in the field cricket Teleogryllus oceanicus. Using in vitro mixtures of sperm and seminal fluid from pairs of male crickets, we show that seminal fluid can affect the viability of sperm in this species. We found that males who invest greatly in the viability of their own sperm can enhance the viability of rival sperm, providing the opportunity for males to exploit the investments in sperm competition made by their rivals. Transitive effects of seminal fluids across the ejaculates of different males are expected to have important implications for the dynamics of male investments in sperm competition.

Sperm competition is expected to favour the evolution of traits that influence the performance of sperm when they compete to fertilize a female's eggs. While there is considerable evidence that selection favours increases in sperm numbers, much less is known about how sperm quality contributes towards competitive fertilization success. Here, we determine whether variation in sperm quality influences competitive fertilization success in the green swordtail Xiphophorus helleri, a highly promiscuous livebearing fish. We use artificial insemination as a method of controlled sperm delivery and show that sperm swimming velocity is the primary determinant of fertilization success when ejaculates from two males compete to fertilize a female's eggs. By contrast, we found no evidence that sperm length had any effect on siring success. We also found no evidence that pre- and postcopulatory sexual traits were phenotypically integrated in this species, suggesting that the previous observation that reproductive skew favours males with high mating rates is unlikely to be due to any direct association between sperm quality and male sexual ornamentation.

Sperm competition and cryptic female choice are likely to exert strong postcopulatory sexual selection and may amplify or ameliorate selection acting via male mating success. However, relatively few studies have estimated the potential strength of postcopulatory sexual selection acting within natural populations. Field crickets in the genus Teleogryllus have been used extensively as laboratory models to study the evolution of polyandry, and the mechanisms of sperm competition and cryptic female choice. However, we have no knowledge of the extent of multiple mating or patterns of sperm utilization in natural populations of these crickets. We used microsatellite loci to examine the strength of postcopulatory sexual selection in Teleogryllus oceanicus and T. commodus. Genotyping of sperm within sperm storage organs revealed high levels of multiple mating by females in both species, but females utilized sperm from just 75% and 60% of their mates, respectively. Paternity was skewed toward a subset of fathers; skew was strongest in T. oceanicus and declined with the number of fathers represented in both species. Thus, postcopulatory sexual selection is strong in natural populations of both species and must be taken into account when estimating total sexual selection acting on these species. More generally, we argue that more effort should be made to measure the strength of postcopulatory sexual selection in other species, and to integrate episodes of pre- and postcopulatory selection, if we are to gain an accurate appreciation of the evolutionary consequences of sexual selection.

Sperm competition theory predicts that among populations and species, male expenditure on the ejaculate should increase with the strength of selection from sperm competition, a prediction for which there is strong evidence from comparative studies of a variety of taxa. Patterns of geographic variation within species can provide important insights into adaptive coevolution; yet, few studies have adopted this approach in studying adaptation to sperm competition. We used highly polymorphic microsatellite markers to genotype clutches of eggs sampled from each of 10 populations across the geographic range of the Australian myobatrachid frog Crinia georgiana. The proportion of clutches with mixed paternity ranged from 0.27 to 0.60. We found significant among-population variation in testes size, the number of sperm stored within the testes, and in the proportion of sperm that were motile. A significant proportion of the among-population variation in testes size and number of sperm was predicted by variation in the density of breeding males found within populations. The covariation between male breeding density and ejaculate expenditure we have found within C. georgiana could be explained either by phenotypic plasticity in ejaculate expenditure in response to local variation in sperm competition risk or an evolutionary divergence in ejaculate expenditure among populations that is driven by variation in the strength of selection from sperm competition. Both scenarios are consistent with sperm competition theory.

When sperm compete to fertilize available ova, selection is expected to favour ejaculate traits that contribute to a male's fertilization success. While there is much evidence to show that selection favours increased numbers of sperm, only a handful of empirical studies have examined how variation in sperm form and function contributes to competitive fertilization success. Here, we examine selection acting on sperm form and function in the externally fertilizing myobatrachid frog, Crinia georgiana . Using in vitro fertilization techniques and controlling for variation in the number of sperm contributed by males in competitive situations, we show that males with a greater proportion of motile sperm, and motile sperm with slower swimming velocities, have an advantage when competing for fertilizations. Sperm morphology and the degree of genetic similarity between putative sires and the female had no influence on competitive fertilization success. These unusual patterns of selection might explain why frog sperm typically exhibit relatively slow swimming speeds and sustained longevity.

Investment in immunity is costly, so that resource-based trade-offs between immunity and sexually selected ornaments might be expected. The amount of resources that an individual can invest in each trait will be limited by the total resources available to them. It would therefore be informative to investigate how investment in immune function changes during growth or production of the sexual trait as resources are diverted to it. Using the dung beetle, Onthophagus taurus, which displays both sexual and male dimorphism in horn size, we examined changes in one measure of immune function, phenoloxidase (PO) activity, in the hemolymph of larvae prior to and during horn growth. We found that PO levels differed between small- and large-horned males throughout the final instar prior to the point where investment in horn growth was taking place. PO levels in females were intermediate to the 2 male morphs. These differences could not be accounted for by differences in condition, measured as hemolymph protein levels and weight. We suggest that the observed differences might be associated with sex- and morph-specific variation in juvenile hormone levels.

Genetic parentage analyses provide insights into mating systems and have revealed widespread evidence for polyandry in natural populations. Here, we use 5 microsatellite markers to estimate female mating rates in a feral population of green swordtails, Xiphophorus helleri, a live-bearing poeciliid fish that has become a model system in the study of precopulatory mate choice and mating competition. Although heralded as a potential model for investigating sperm competition as early as 1950, there has been no attempt to explore postcopulatory sexual selection in its mating system. We thus obtained information on the prevalence, and therefore biological relevance, of polyandry from a wild population. We genotyped the offspring from 14 wild-caught gravid females and determined the number of fathers in each brood using allele counting methods and the programs GERUD and PARENTAGE. Our analyses revealed that 57% (allele counts and GERUD) and 71% (PARENTAGE) of the sampled broods had at least 2 sires, with a global mean 1.74 fathers per brood. Paternity skew was generally high in mixed paternity broods so that our analyses almost certainly underestimate actual mating frequencies in the wild. Our data provide a solid underpinning for future studies of postcopulatory sexual selection in this species.

Empirical tests of sexual selection theory generally utilize model systems under laboratory settings, and extend conclusions to evolutionary processes occurring in nature. The biological significance of laboratory findings will depend largely on the mating rates of females and patterns of paternity in natural populations, information on which is generally lacking. Here we use microsatellite markers to provide rare estimates of female mating rates and patterns of parentage in a species of tettigoniid, Requena verticalis, which has been used extensively to test theory on the evolution of male parental investment and its influence on the direction of sexual selection. We found that although the number of males having a genetic representation in the female's sperm stores was higher for females collected late in the breeding season than those collected early in the season, overall the female mating rate was lower than that expected from laboratory observations. Analysis of parentage of offspring produced by females at the end of the breeding season revealed that all males represented in the sperm stores fathered offspring, although paternity was biased away from that expected from random sperm utilization. The data show that the complete first male sperm precedence documented in laboratory studies of this species does not persist in natural populations. Our data provide a solid underpinning for conclusions drawn from laboratory studies of this species.

Multiple mating is thought to provide an opportunity for females to avoid the costs of genetic incompatibility by postcopulatory selection of compatible sperm haplotypes. Few studies have tested the genetic incompatibility hypothesis directly. Here we experimentally manipulated the compatibility of females with their mates using the gryllid cricket Teleogryllus oceanicus. We recorded the hatching success of eggs laid by females mated with two nonsibling males, two siblings, or one nonsibling male and one sibling. In contrast with two previous studies on crickets that have adopted this approach, the hatching success of eggs did not differ between females mated with two full siblings and females mated with two unrelated males, indicating that embryo viability was not a cost of inbreeding in this species. We assigned paternity to offspring produced by females mated to both a sibling and a nonsibling male using microsatellite markers. As in previous studies of this species, we were unable to detect any difference in the proportion of offspring sired by the 1st and the 2nd male to mate with a female when females were unrelated to their mates. However, in our experimental matings the proportion of offspring sired by the nonsibling male depended on his sequence position. Paternity was biased toward the nonsibling male when he mated first. Our data show that molecular analyses of paternity are essential to detect subtle mechanisms of postcopulatory sexual selection.

1. Females of Dawson's burrowing bees vary in body weight over a twofold range. Despite the potential for differences in body weight to affect several aspects of the competition among nesting females, no clear advantages were documented for larger females.2. Nesting females were not consistently larger than emerging females, nor was there a consistent relationship between body size and the weight of pollen and nectar carried to the nest on provisioning trips. At one nesting location, larger females did not produce larger pre-pupal offspring nor did they produce offspring at a faster rate than their smaller nesting companions.3. In addition, large body size was not associated with greater success in nest defence despite the fact that nesting females regularly encountered intruders in their burrows. Residency, not body size, determined the outcome of almost all contests for control of a nest burrow. The absence of a large body size effect here appears to stem from an intruder strategy designed to enable nest-searching females to acquire burrows that had been abandoned through death or dispersal of their original owners rather than securing existing nests through an aggressive takeover strategy.4. Thus, although large body size conveys significant fitness advantages to males, this attribute does not promote female success in either provisioning or defending their nests.

Dawson's burrowing bee is a large solitary ground‐nesting bee endemic to the arid zone of Western Australia. In this study, we use microsatellite markers to analyse the genotypes of offspring from individual nests to determine the number of effective mates for each female. From these data we have determined that females almost certainly mate only once which is consistent with male reproductive tactics that include protandry and intense male–male competition for access to virgin females. We also use the molecular data to show that the nesting female is the mother of all the offspring of her nest and that brood parasitism is unlikely in this species. The data indicate that females make daughters at the beginning of the season followed by large sons in the middle, and then small sons at the end. Females often place one brood cell directly above another. The distribution of sex and morph in these doublets follows a pattern with most containing a female on the bottom and a minor male on the top, followed by almost equal numbers of female on top of female and minor male on top of major male. This pattern is likely favoured by emergence patterns, with males emerging before females and minor males emerging before major males. We suggest that although minor males have low reproductive success, their production may nonetheless be beneficial in that minor males open up emergence tunnels for their larger and reproductively more valuable siblings. In addition, minor males may be a best of a bad job product arising from changes in the costs to nesting females of gathering brood provisions over the course of the flight season.