Sexual reproduction starts with the combination of a sperm and an egg in a process called fertilization. Fertilization can occur either inside (internal fertilization) or outside (external fertilization) the body of the female.

External Fertilization

The information below is adapted from OpenStax Biology 43.2

External fertilization usually occurs in aquatic environments where both eggs and sperm are released into the water, a process called spawning. Water protects the eggs from drying out during development. Getting the sperm and egg together requires that the gametes be released at the same time and in the same location to increase the likelihood of fertilization (otherwise all those gametes are wasted!)  How does that happen?

• In some species, including some fish, crustaceans, mollusks, and other invertebrates, there are environmental (water temperature, length of daylight) or biological (pheromones) cues that cause males and females to release gametes at the same time.  In this situation, males and females are often not interacting with each other as individuals, but massed together so that all sperm and all eggs are in the same location.
• In other species, including many amphibians, individual males court individual females to induce the female to release the eggs, at which point the male releases the sperm to fertilize that individual female’s eggs.

Cauliflower coral broadcast spawning. Image credit: Lindsey Kramer/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwspacific/5749767483

During sexual reproduction in toads, the male grasps the female from behind and externally fertilizes the eggs as they are deposited. (credit: “OakleyOriginals”/Flickr)

Internal Fertilization

The information below is adapted from OpenStax Biology 43.2

Internal fertilization occurs most often in land-based animals, although some aquatic animals also use this method. There are three ways that offspring are produced following internal fertilization:

• Fertilized eggs are laid outside the female’s body and develop there, and the embryo receives nourishment from the yolk that is a part of the egg. This occurs in most bony fish, many reptiles, some cartilaginous fish, most amphibians, two mammals, and all birds.
• Fertilized eggs are retained inside the female’s body, but the embryo receives nourishment from the egg’s yolk and the young are fully developed when they are hatched. This occurs in some bony fish, some sharks, some lizards, some snakes, some vipers, and some invertebrate animals.
• Fertilized eggs are retained inside the female, and the embryo receives nourishment from the mother’s blood through a placenta. The offspring develops in the female and is born alive. This occurs in most mammals, some cartilaginous fish, and a few reptiles.

Internal fertilization has the advantage of protecting the fertilized egg from dehydration on land. In many instances, the embryo is isolated within the female, which limits predation on the young. Internal fertilization also increases the likelihood of fertilization by a specific male. Fewer offspring are produced through this method, but their survival rate is higher than that for external fertilization.

Females are “choosy;” males are not

Because females of most sexually reproducing species are “choosy,” females are often the sex that sexually selects traits in males.  As a result, males compete with each other for access to females and/or induce a specific female to mate with him. As a result of this competition, sexual selection often leads to sexual dimorphism, or distinct differences in size or appearance between males and females. These differences in size or appearance are called secondary sexual characteristics, exaggerated or showy traits that are associated with mating behaviours and reproductive success. Examples include breasts, showy tails and headpieces, and crazier traits like the length of the eye-stalks in stalk-eyed flies.

Stalk-eyed flies have eyes at the end of long stalks, and they compete for mates by measuring the distance between their eyes. Evidence shows that wider eye placement wins in these bouts of male competition. (Image credit: Jojo Cruzado – stalk eyed fly, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39304119)

Sexual dimorphism can lead to specific behaviors in males that increase their reproductive success.  In both cases, significant energy is spent in the process of locating, attracting, and mating with the sex partner.

Competition among males occurs whether species mate via internal or external fertilization. In species that mate via internal fertilization, it’s pretty obvious that multiple males can’t mate with a female at the same time, and thus they must compete with each other.  In species that mate via external fertilization, the female controls how and when the eggs are released, and thus males must compete for access to her eggs outside of her body.

Adaptations to increase reproductive success

It is important to keep in mind that adaptations (anything that increases an individual’s reproductive success) occur without conscious thought or intention on the part of the individual; see the Bio1510 website pages on “What is Evolution?” and “Evolution by Natural Selection” for help with this often confusing concept. The result of these types of selection is the evolution of different strategies for maximizing biological fitness, or reproductive success relative to others in the population.  An individual who has, for example, 10 surviving offspring (who then go on to reproduce as well) has higher fitness than an individual who has 7 offspring surviving offspring.

There are many different types of adaptations in different species to maximize biological fitness, including parental investment, direct male competition, and indirect male competition. These concepts are described below:

Parental investment is any energy, effort, or resource that a parent provides to increase the offspring’s chances of survival, but at the cost of the parent’s ability to invest in other offspring. Parental investment can include all types of parental care, as well as energy resources deposited in the egg or other nutrition provided to the developing embryo. It occurs both in species that reproduce via internal fertilization as well as those that reproduce via external fertilization. Some examples are shown below:

The male of the common midwife toad, Alytes obstetricans, carries the fertilized eggs on his hind legs until they are ready to hatch. By Christian Fischer, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7344145

Like many bird species, hummingbirds provide food to their hatchling until the young birds are ready to leave the nest. By Wolfgang Wander, Papa Lima Whiskey (edit) – self-made / http://www.pbase.com/wwcsig/image/86468128, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10230928

Males often engage in direct male competition over potential mating partners. This type of competition occurs when females mate only with a single male, typically the “winner” of the competition. Direct male competition often includes aggression (fighting) between males, but there are other forms as well.

Examples of direct male competition include:

• Male-male aggression: males fight with each other for access to females
• Courtship rituals: males engage in “dances” or other displays to attract females
• Lekking: a specialized form of courtship ritual where many males gather together in one place and “display” at the same time, allowing females to choose among them

Male-male aggression in Mallard ducks. Image credit:
Ken Clifton/Flickr

It’s not all just competition between males; females choose which males to mate with based on observing the male competition. Selection of the “best” male by females is called female choice or intersexual selection. Female choice (intersexual selection) and direct male competition (intrasexual selection) usually lead to selection for extremely “showy” traits that don’t appear to provide any benefit to the individual’s survival, and might even make it more likely for the animal to be eaten by a predator (think of the peacock’s tail – see below). But if the trait improves the male’s ability to produce successful offspring because more females choose to mate with him, then these traits do in fact improve an individual’s biological fitness, even at the cost of decreasing its survival!

One question is why females should “care” about these showy male traits. A leading hypothesis to answer this question is the good genes hypothesis, which is the idea that these sexually-selected, showy male traits are “honest indicators” of good genetic quality. In other words, it takes good genes to make a big flashy tail (and to avoid being eaten by a predator, since that big tail slows him down), so the bigger and showier the tail, the “better” the male.

The peacock’s tail is used on courtship displays to attract females. Females prefer males with larger, more colorful tails. Image credit:
Özgür Mülazımoğlu/Flickr

This video gives a brief overview of the implications of the good genes hypothesis and sexual selection in humans:

Instead of (or in addition to) competing directly with each other to have the opportunity to mate with a female, males can also compete for fertilization of a female’s eggs after mating has already occurred!  Competing after mating is also called indirect male competition, or sperm competition, and it results in one male being more successful than another at fertilizing a female’s eggs.  This type of competition occurs in species where the female is likely to mate with multiple males, so instead of males directly competing with each other, they are competing via their sperm. In other words, if a female mates with more than one male, then any male whose sperm end up fertilizing more eggs is going to have more offspring, on average, than other males..  So if there is a trait that makes this male’s sperm more successful than other male’s sperm, then that trait is going to end up increasing in the population over generations.

Examples of traits which typically confer first male advantage include:

• Mate guarding: a male remains close by the female after mating, preventing other males from mating with her until there has been time for his sperm to fertilize the eggs
• Copulatory plugs: the male’s ejaculate includes a sticky residue which temporarily blocks entry to the female’s reproductive tract, making it difficult for other males to mate with her until after there has been time for the first male’s sperm to fertilize the eggs

Examples of traits which typically confer second male advantage include:

• Elaborate penis morphology: elaborate structures on the penis help remove the sperm of previous males from the female’s reproductive tract by essentially scraping out the previous ejaculate
• Large ejaculate volume and large testes: a large volume of ejaculate helps to flush out the sperm deposited in the female’s reproductive tract by the previous male; a large ejaculate volume means the testes must also be large, in order to have enough space to hold all the sperm

The genitalia of the male Callosobruchus analis beetle is covered in spines from base to tip; the spines facilitate removal of sperm deposited in the female’s reproductive tract by previous males. Referenced in Rönn, J., Katvala, M. & Arnqvist, G. 2007. Coevolution between harmful male genitalia and female resistance in seed beetles. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104, 10921-1092. and Hotzy, C. & Arnqvist, G. 2009. Sperm competition favors harmful males in seed beetles. Current Biology 19, 404-407.

Female anatomy can also influence the success of sperm from specific males in a process called cryptic female choice, where a female is capable of preferentially using sperm from a specific male even if she has mated with multiple males. This process is poorly understood but suggests that males competition alone does not dictate success of that male sperm in fertilizing an egg.

This video provides a great overview of sperm competition, but be aware that it erroneously refers to bonobos as having a polygymous mating system (they are promiscuous) and gorillas as being monogamous (they are polygynous):

Animal mating systems

Three general mating systems, all involving innate and evolutionarily selected (as opposed to learned) behaviors, are seen in animal populations: monogamous, polygamous, and promiscuous. The polygamous system includes two sub-types: polgynous and polyandrous systems.

In monogamous systems, one male and one female are paired for at least one breeding season. In some animals, such as the prairie vole, these associations can last much longer, even a lifetime. While there are many non-mutually exclusive hypotheses to explain selection for monogamous mating systems, one prominent explanation is the “male-assistance hypothesis,” where males that remain with a female to help guard and rear their young will have more and healthier offspring. The male-assistance hypothesis is supported by the observation that many monogamous species live in environments with widely scattered resources, meaning that it takes the effort of more than one adult to forage for enough resources to rear the young.

Prairie vole. Image credit: By United States National Park Service – Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3260038

True monogamy, also called sexual monogamy, is where both partners mate only with each other; true monogamy is exceedingly rare. Much more common is social monogamy, where two individuals partner together to rear their offspring, but also engage in “extra-pair copulations,” or matings with other individual (in human social parlance, we would call this “infidelity”). Social monogamy has both advantages and disadvantages for each partner. You can imagine the advantage for a male in this scenario: he helps rear offspring with his social partner, increasing the likely survival of those offspring, but he also mates with other females, thus increasing his total number of offspring (assuming any of these other offspring also survive).

Social monogamy can also be advantageous for the female: she has help from a social partner in raising her offspring, but she can also mate with other males who may be genetically “better.” The disadvantage for the male in this scenario is that he is most likely helping to raise offspring that are not his own. The disadvantage for the female is that the male may abandon her – and her offspring – if he detects that she has mated with another male. The vast majority of songbirds demonstrate social monogamy, where up to 40% of the offspring in a mating pair’s nest were not actually fathered by the male partner.

Male and female zebrafinch. Zebrafinches, like many songbirds, exhibit a socially monogamous mating system. Image credit: Keith Gerstung, Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Taeniopygia_guttata_-Bird_Kingdom,_Niagara_Falls,_Ontario,_Canada_-pair-8a.jpg

Polygamy refers to either one male mating with multiple females or one female mates with many males. When one male mating with multiple females, called polygyny (“many females”), the female takes responsibility for most of the parental care as the single male is not capable of providing care to that many offspring. For instance, imagine that a male has established a territory such that he can provide access to resources. Females that enter the territory are drawn to its resource richness, which may signal that he has good genes for protecting a territory. The female benefits by mating with a genetically fit male at the cost of having no male help care for the offspring. For example, in the yellow-rumped honeyguide (a bird) males defend beehives because the females feed on beewax. As the females approach to find beeswax, the male defending the nest will mate with them.

Harem mating structures are a type of polygynous system where certain males dominate mating while controlling a territory with resources. In elephant seals, the alpha male dominates the mating within the group. Another type of polygyny is a lek system. In leks, the species has a communal courting area where several males perform elaborate displays for females, and the females choose their mate from the performing males. Lekking behavior is observed in several bird species including the sage grouse and the prairie chicken.

A battle-scarred male northern elephant seal among his harem of females and pups. Image credit: “Mike” Michael L. Baird https://www.flickr.com/photos/mikebaird/5397483362

The other type of polygamy is called a polyandry (“many males”), where one female mates with multiple males. Polyandry very rare because it involves sex role reversal, where females invest less in offspring while males invest more.

Pipefishes, a relative of seahorses exhibit polyandry where females compete for access to males. In both pipefishes and seahorses, males receive the eggs from the female, fertilize them, protect them within a pouch, and give birth to the offspring (see below). However, seahorses are monogamous, while pipefish are polyandrous.

Why do these similar species differ in mating system? Ecologically, seahorses live in habitats with widely distributed resources, which means that the seahorse population is spread out and spread thin. The scattered population means that it is can be difficult to find a mating partner. Natural selection favours keeping a partner, once found, for reproductive assurance. In contrast to seahorses, pipefish tends to live in very dense populations in resource-rich environments. Because the male’s pouches, rather than the female’s eggs, are the limiting resource in reproduction, females compete with each other for access to males.

Promiscuous mating systems occur when females mate with multiple males, and males mate with multiple females.  Promiscuity generally occurs when a single male is unable to sexually monopolize a group of females, either because the females range more widely than the territory size of a single male, so they interact with multiple males (eg, the maximum territory size a male can defend is smaller than the females’ ranges), or because males and females live together in large social groups that a single male cannot monopolize.

In large social groups, often all females are sexually receptive at the same time, meaning that a single male cannot prevent other males from mating with other females while he mates with one female. Because each female mates with multiple males, paternity is never certain. The uncertainty of not knowing “who’s the daddy” selects for males to avoid infanticide, as they may inadvertently kill their own offspring.

Male, female, and juvenile bonobos. Image credit: W. H. Calvin
CC BY-SA 4.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50736326

The video below provides a quick overview of animal mating systems:

Mating systems are influenced by competition for mates, and competition for mates is influenced by mating system. Except in the case of sexual (true) monogamy, there is always competition for fertilization. What differs in different mating systems is whether the competition occurs before mating (direct male competition) or after mating (sperm competition). In class we’ll spend some time considering the relationships between mating system, when competition occurs, and the resulting effects on an individual’s behavior and/or appearance.