No Sex, No Sperm
Scientists recently discovered that male Steinernema longicaudum, a parasitic worm, stops creating sperm when not sexually active. While it is known that some creatures cut back on sperm creation in certain circumstances, there is no other known instance of animals completely ceasing the creation of sperm.
It is not known exactly what benefit this imparts on the worms, especially since sperm creation is generally considered a relatively "cheap" process, requiring little energy and resources. However, with these parasitic worms, there are instances in which males have no chance of mating. These worms live in hosts, and if there is no sexually mature female in the host with whom the male can mate, the male has no chance of mating and therefore no reason for reaching sexual maturity. Perhaps this helps them conserve energy and possibly cause them to take less from their host.
Amy Kawazoe (9)
Update 11/19:
I forgot to put the link to the article I read which can be found here.
I realize that I made it unclear, but the worms do not stop producing sperm, they do not produce sperm in the absence of a female to with whom to mate. Since these parasitic worms live in a host organism, they have no chance of leaving and therefore no chance of going off to find a mate unless a female chooses to live at some point in the same host. I'm not sure if sperm production stops if a female worm dies and the male worm is left alone. Sperm production can be induced by introducing a female, even on the opposite side of a glass. It is believed that what triggers the sperm production may be pheromones.
posted by PWH @ 3:38 PM
10 comments
10 Comments:
Wow, too bad this doesn't occur in other species. Which animals host these worms? (I didn't notice an article.) How often does this occur? I would definitely be interested in knowing more about this topic. Very interesting.
Michele Copeland
This is a very interesting topic. I think it makes perfect sense that if the male worms weren't going to mate it would defeat the purpose of making sperm. In all honesty although sperm isn't nearly as energetically expensive as an egg it still requires some sort of energy expenditure. I believe this mechanism probably evolved to increase the amount of energy of males during their lifetime especially if they never got the opportunity to mate.
-Joanne Philippeaux
When I stsrted reading this i thought it would make sense not to have to make the sperm, but then I saw that this process isnt considered very taxing. Has it been studied id this is really the case in this species? maybe with their lifestyle it is comaritively energy taxing? very interesting that it is the only known species to have this.
Erica Damon
This is crazy! I am a bit confused though.. when do they exactly stop producing sperm? Or, do they not stop producing sperm, they just never produce it if they aren't sexually active? If this is the case what is the critical period for them to be sexually active in order to produce sperm? Also, do they ever have an opportunity to produce sperm again?
Chantal Gomes
This is not too surprising since it's good for the worms to minimize their energy use, even though sperm production isn't too energy-consuming. Can they switch this behavior on and off, or once they stop the production they can never regain the ability to produce sperm again? Do other parasitic worms do this? Because looking at the explanation you provided, I think it would be somewhat beneficial for other parasitic worms to do this too.
Hanbing Guo
Interesting article, thought it does make sense because if an organism doesn’t benefit from a behavior such as sex then the ability to produce sperm would also disappear, why waste energy no matter how little right. Thought I wonder how do these parasitic worm reproduce when there is only male present?
Tenzing Y. Dundutsang
This is pretty interesting... How do these worms reproduce in hosts? It does make sense that they would lose their ability to produce sperm when there isnt a female around but how do they know for sure that no females are going to come around? Wouldnt it be worse for them to lose this ability and then a female comes around and they cant reproduce? I would think it would be better to keep your ability to produce sperm all the time in case of a rare female comes around... Doesnt seem like there would ever be tons of females around.
Brena Sena
That was an interesting article. I wasn't aware that some species were able to decrease their sperm production never mind stop it completely. I wonder besides the presences of a female mate what are the internal triggers to the production of sperm in these parasitic worms?
- Debbie Theodat
What triggers creation/stop of sperms? We studied a similar case in robin birds. The light cue triggered such behavior in robins.
is it triggered in the same way? or is there any other special cues?
-Yi, Jeongsang.
This is very interesting. I wonder if there are any other insects do this? It would seem like similar species with do the same thing to have the benefit aswell
Mia DiFabbio
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