ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2020
The role of female reproductive fluid in sperm competition.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 76 citations in OpenAlex.
- Per capita sperm metabolism is density dependent.The Journal of experimental biology · 2024Pooled it
- Male alternative reproductive tactics and sperm competition: a meta-analysis.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2022Pooled it
- The role of female reproductive fluid in mediating reproductive isolation between ecotypes of the three-spined stickleback.Zoological letters · 2026Article
- The effects of sexual selection on functional and molecular reproductive divergence during experimental evolution in seed beetles.Evolution letters · 2026Article
- Female-mediated selective sperm activation may remodel major histocompatibility complex-based mate choice decisions in humans.Heredity · 2025Article
- Age-dependent decline in sperm quality and function in a naturally short-lived vertebrate.BMC ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Silent cells? Potential for context-dependent gene expression in mature sperm.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Article
- Regional specialization, polyploidy, and seminal fluid transcripts in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Comparative Genomic Analysis of the Pattern of Evolution of Male and Female Reproductive Proteins in Seed Beetles.Genome biology and evolution · 2024Article
- Sperm performance in the race for fertilization, the influence of female reproductive fluid.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- Proteomic analysis reveals dynamic changes in cloacal fluid composition during the reproductive season in a sexually promiscuous passerine.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Paternal environment effects are driven by female reproductive fluid but not sperm age in an external fertilizer.Biology letters · 2023Article
- Female reproductive fluid and male seminal fluid: a non-gametic conflict for post-mating control.Biology letters · 2023Article
- The coevolutionary dynamics of cryptic female choice.Evolution letters · 2023Article
- Evolutionary Quantitative Proteomics of Reproductive Protein Divergence in Drosophila.Molecular & cellular proteomics : MCP · 2023Article
- Female reproductive fluid attracts more and better sperm: implications for within-ejaculate cryptic female choice.Biology letters · 2023Article
- Female reproductive fluids 'rescue' sperm from phenotypic ageing in an external fertilizer.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Sperm selection by the oviduct: perspectives for male fertility and assisted reproductive technologies†.Biology of reproduction · 2023Article
- Sexual selection drives the coevolution of male and female reproductive traits in Peromyscus mice.Journal of evolutionary biology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The role of non-gametic components of the ejaculate (seminal fluid) in fertility and sperm competitiveness is now well established. Surprisingly, however, we know far less about female reproductive fluid (FRF) in the context of sexual selection, and insights into male-FRF interactions in the context of sperm competition have only recently emerged. Despite this limited knowledge, evidence from taxonomically diverse species has revealed insights into the effects of FRF on sperm traits that have previously been implicated in studies of sperm competition. Specifically, through the differential effects of FRF on a range of sperm traits, including chemoattraction and alterations in sperm velocity, FRF has been shown to exert positive phenotypic effects on the sperm of males that are preferred as mating partners, or those from the most compatible or genetically diverse males. Despite these tantalizing insights into the putative sexually selected functions of FRF, we largely lack a mechanistic understanding of these processes. Taken together, the evidence presented here highlights the likely ubiquity of FRF-regulated biases in fertilization success across a diverse range of taxa, thus potentially elevating the importance of FRF to other non-gametic components that have so far been studied largely in males. This article is part of the theme issue 'Fifty years of sperm competition'.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.