ArticleFrontiers in cell and developmental biology2021
Androgen Elevation Accelerates Reproductive Senescence in Three-Spined Stickleback.
Article in Frontiers in cell and developmental biology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 4 citations in OpenAlex.
- Carotenoid-based ornaments predict survival in male but not female birds: A meta-analysis.iScience · 2026Article
- The gonad as a mediator of life history tradeoffs: Antagonistic hormonal pleiotropy facilitates evolutionary divergence in reproductive strategies.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Early Oxidative Stress May Prevent a Red Ornament From Signaling Longevity.Journal of experimental zoology. Part A, Ecological and integrative physiology · 2025Article
- Editorial: Mechanisms and Pathways Contributing to the Diversity of Aging Across the Tree of Life.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Costs of reproduction shape the life-history evolution of investment in current and future reproduction and thereby aging. Androgens have been proposed to regulate the physiology governing these investments. Furthermore, androgens are hypothesized to play a central role in carotenoid-dependent sexual signaling, regulating how much carotenoids are diverted to ornamentation and away from somatic maintenance, increasing oxidative stress, and accelerating aging. We investigated these relationships in male three-spined stickleback in which we elevated 11-ketotestosterone and supplied vitamin E, an antioxidant, in a 2 × 2 design. Androgen elevation shortened the time stickleback maintained reproductive activities. We suspect that this effect is caused by 11-ketotestosterone stimulating investment in current reproduction, but we detected no evidence for this in our measurements of reproductive effort: nest building, body composition, and breeding coloration. Carotenoid-dependent coloration was even slightly decreased by 11-ketotestosterone elevation and was left unaffected by vitamin E. Red coloration correlated with life expectancy and reproductive capacity in a quadratic manner, suggesting overinvestment of the individuals exhibiting the reddest bellies. In contrast, blue iris color showed a negative relationship with survival, suggesting physiological costs of producing this aspect of nuptial coloration. In conclusion, our results support the hypothesis that androgens regulate investment in current versus future reproduction, yet the precise mechanisms remain elusive. The quadratic relationships between sexual signal expression and aspects of quality have wider consequences for how we view sexual selection on ornamentation and its relationship with aging.
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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.