{"id":2556,"date":"2014-07-29T13:03:49","date_gmt":"2014-07-29T18:03:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=2556"},"modified":"2014-07-29T13:30:24","modified_gmt":"2014-07-29T18:30:24","slug":"killer-sperm-prevents-mating-between-worm-species","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/killer-sperm-prevents-mating-between-worm-species\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Killer sperm&#8217; prevents mating between worm species<img src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/canada_flag_icon_small.gif\">"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2551\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/sperm.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2551\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2551\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/sperm-300x188.jpg\" alt=\"This image depicts an instance of cross-species breeding gone awry. Fluorescence microscopy reveals sperm, in red, invading a female worm's body. (Photo credit: Gavin Woodruff)\" width=\"300\" height=\"188\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/sperm-300x188.jpg 300w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/sperm.jpg 623w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2551\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This image depicts an instance of cross-species breeding gone awry. Fluorescence microscopy reveals sperm, in red, invading a female worm&#8217;s body. (Photo credit: Gavin Woodruff)<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In <\/span><span style=\"font-style: italic; color: #000000;\">Caenorhabditis<\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\"> worms, sperm from a foreign species can attack the organs of a female, rendering her sterile or even killing her according to new research. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Researchers believe the \u2018killer sperm\u2019 may be the result of a divergence in the evolution of worm species&#8217; sexual organs. For example,\u00a0hermaphrodite worms\u2014which produce their own sperm and fertilize their own eggs to reproduce\u2014were especially susceptible to sterility and death when mated with males of other species. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The research team believes that the hermaphrodite uterus may have evolved to tolerate \u2018gentler\u2019 sperm, but not the larger, more active sperm of non-hermaphrodite species.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.plosbiology.org\/article\/info:doi\/10.1371\/journal.pbio.1001915\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Original research paper<\/span><\/a>\u00a0published in the\u00a0<em>PLoS Biology<span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/em>on\u00a0<strong>July 29, 2014<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em><strong>Names and affiliations of selected\u00a0authors<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<h4><a style=\"color: #1155cc;\" href=\"http:\/\/labs.eeb.utoronto.ca\/cutter\/\" target=\"_blank\">Asher D. Cutter<\/a><span style=\"color: #000000;\">, Canada Research Chair in Evolutionary Genomics, University of Toronto, Ontario<\/span><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Caenorhabditis worms, sperm from a foreign species can attack the organs of a female, rendering her sterile or even killing her according to new research. Researchers believe the \u2018killer sperm\u2019 may be the result of a divergence in the evolution of worm species&#8217; sexual organs. For example,\u00a0hermaphrodite worms\u2014which produce their own sperm and fertilize [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2551,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[170,113,917,909,1290],"class_list":["post-2556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-biodiversity","tag-biology","tag-evolution","tag-genetics","tag-reproduction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/sperm.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-Fe","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2556"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2612,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2556\/revisions\/2612"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}