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Male mice exposed to other male competitors have thicker penis bones according to a new study by researchers from the University of Western Australia, published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B : Biological Sciences .
Ph.D. Candidate and Principal Investigator Gonҫalo Igreja André, from the School of Biological Sciences of UWA, said that it was the first time that a study showed that the social environment in which men grow up could have an impact on their genital form.
This kind of result has never been seen before in ducks, but it is the first study to show that the shape of the genitals of a mammal can vary depending on the size of the animal. The social environment in which males mature, "says Igreja André, has been shown to influence the sexual responses that are important to the reproductive success of domestic mice and other mammals.
" For example, males exposed to the presence of rivals produce more sperm and our study revealed that penis bones or baculum mice develop differently when men perceive that there is a risk of sexual competition.
"Our research findings support the idea that the shape of the penis and not the size is under sexual selection and raises the question of how this structure influences a male's ability to breed offspring when the females mate with several males. "
M. Igreja Andre said that the next step was to determine the mechanism by which the bones of the penis influenced sexual reproduction.
More information:
Gonçalo I. André et al. Phenotypic plasticity in the genitals: the form of baculum responds to the risk of sperm competition in domestic mice, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2018). DOI: 10.1098 / rspb.2018.1086
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