Morphological diversity of sperm: A mini review

Abstract

Sperms are highly specialized cells for delivering DNA from male to the ovum. Incredibly, wide degree of diversity in sperm morphology in their basic structures i.e. head, middle piece and tail is found across species. Differences in terms of overall size of the sperm, shape and number of sperm produced are also incredible. One of the key for this variations or diversity in sperm may be associated with female reproductive tract, sperm competition, testicular size and sperm size and number. Establishing a correlation between sperm morphology and factors influencing them is a phenomenal task. In this mini-review these associations and the anatomical and functional adaptations among different from of sperm cells that have evolved to optimize fertilization success are discussed. Nevertheless, explaining these morphological diversities in sperm cells is a challenging question and it seems that evolutionary biologists have only recently engaged in exploring its links and patterns. From the literatures it seems that there is no causal relationship between sperm size and testicular size, however, the accumulated knowledge do indicates evolution of sperm morphology across species has some associations with female reproductive tract, sperm competition and sperm size and number, however interpreting these results for phylogentic correlations should be approached with caution.

Keywords: Evolution; Sperm; Sperm competition; Sperm morphology.