Frequency of multiple paternity varies between two populations of brown smoothhound shark, Mustelus henlei

Evidence for sperm storage in common smoothhound shark Mustelus mustelus and paternity assessment in a single litter from South Africa

“…mustelus ( sensu Marino et al, ; Rossouw et al, ). This trend has previously been documented in M. antarcticus (Boomer et al, ), brown smoothhound shark Mustelus henlei (Gill 1863) (Chabot & Haggin, ) and sandbar sharks Carcharhinus plumbeus (Nardo 1827) (Daly‐Engel et al, ; Portnoy et al, ). Further investigations of MP in a larger sample size (in terms of the number of litters) will enable a more accurate estimate of the fine‐scale frequency of MP in the Mossel Bay region.…”

“…(), an even larger percentage of MP is reported for the species in Kwa‐Zulu Natal on the east coast of South Africa, where MP was determined in four out of six litters (67%). Several studies in species of Mustelus reveal that the frequency of MP, measured as the percentage of multiple‐sired litters, not only differs between species but also amongst populations (Byrne & Avise, ; Boomer et al, ; Chabot & Haggin, ; Farrell et al, ; Marino et al, ; Rossouw et al, ). Furthermore, a few of these studies also reveal a high variability in the relative paternal contribution of males within species (Boomer et al, ; Farrell et al, ; Rossouw et al, ).…”

Who's My Daddy? Considerations for the influence of sexual selection on multiple paternity in elasmobranch mating systems

“…In previous studies, the high rate of multiple paternity in elasmobranchs has been attributed to convenience polyandry (DiBattista et al, 2008;Griffiths et al, 2011) or lack of female control over mate choice and/or frequency (Chapman et al, 2013). Therefore, multiple paternity may be high when populations are large with a high mate encounter rate (Chabot & Haggin, 2014;Daly-Engel, Grubbs, Bowen, & Toonen, 2007;Kokko & Rankin, 2006;Soucy & Travis, 2003). Indeed, the mobility and large population of round stingrays may make it difficult for any one male to dominate or exclude other males, and our data demonstrate that there is great variation in male reproductive potential (i.e., high variation in testes mass), suggesting that males perceive their mating opportunities to be reduced (Arnqvist, 1992) and competition to be high.…”

“…Several simulations were run with varying parameters including number of sires, reproductive skew of putative fathers (i.e., the number of different sires responsible for a single litter), and litter size. Studies of polyandry in sharks have detected a range of one to seven sires per brood (Boomer et al, 2013;Byrne & Avise, 2012;Chabot & Haggin, 2014;Chapman et al, 2013;Heist, Carrier, Pratt, & Pratt, 2011), so this study assumed a conservative range of two to five sires. Each simulation was run with litter sizes ranging between 3 and 6 that corresponded to the minimum and maximum size of observed litters.…”

First evidence of multiple paternity in the bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas)

“…To date, genetic studies have shown multiple paternity in several elasmobranch species, including the small-spotted cat shark (Scyliorhinus canicula) (Griffiths et al 2012), lemon shark (Negaprion brevirostris), sandbar shark (Carcharhinus plumbeus), bonnet head shark (Sphyrna tiburo) and brown smooth hound (Mustelus henlei) (for a review, see Byrne and Avise 2012). Although multiple paternity is common in sharks, variability is observed at both inter-and intraspecific scales (Chapman et al 2004;Feldheim et al 2004;Daly-Engel et al 2007;Portnoy et al 2007;DiBattista et al 2008b;Chabot and Haggin 2014) and several hypotheses have been proposed to explain this process, such as indirect benefits or convenience polyandry (Zeh and Zeh 2001;Griffiths et al 2012).…”