Ugly males more fertile

[steven johnson]

Yeah! There's hope for me and my face made for radio.

Attractive males release fewer sperm per mating to increase the odds of producing offspring across a range of females, suggesting that couplings with attractive males may be less fruitful than those with unattractive ones. The new findings, published in American Naturalist, are based on mathematical models representing a range of male ejaculation strategies. The researchers, from University College London (UCL) and the University of Oxford, sought to identify the optimum "sperm load" per mating and how this might vary depending on mating patterns.

Previous studies have shown that in animals such as the domestic fowl, and fish such as the Arctic charr, males with privileged access to females produce ejaculations of lower fertilizing quality than subordinate males.

"If a male puts a lot of resources into each mating he will get more offspring per mating, but at the expense of fewer matings. If, on the other hand, a male puts few resources into each mating he will secure less paternity per mating, but will be able to carry out more matings overall. Thus, there is a trade-off between number of matings and success per mating," explained UCL's Sam Tazzyman. "How a male negotiates this trade-off depends on how easy he finds it to attract females. The more attractive a male is, the more females will be willing to mate with him, reducing the value of each mating to him. This means it is optimal for him to contribute fewer sperm per mating. Although this reduces fertility per mating, it maximizes the number of offspring he sires overall. Less attractive males secure fewer matings but value each of them more highly, and by allocating more sperm to each mating make the most of their meager opportunities."


The paper suggested that future work should focus on males that are similarly attractive, but have different levels of resources to allocate to sperm production, to see how this alters their sperm number and quality. Additionally, the researchers say the model should also be expanded to include the effects of short-term sperm depletion and whether the lower fertility of attractive males causes females to start avoiding attractive males that mate too often



Ugly males more fertile

[Confusious]

1. They give money for studies like this

So I can blow rice chuck over my keyboard. The poor interns who had to do this study.

"Oh my grandson, he's an investment banker on wall street" Don't wanna tell about the fowl sperm collection.

[JDPriestly]

2. How do they define attractive and ugly?

[obliviously]

3. Of course they are

they don't get it as often and their sperm count is higher!

[Berry Cool]

4. Maybe there needs to be a new song...

If you wanna be a mommy for the rest of your life,
Never become a handsome man's wife,
So from my personal point of view,
Get an ugly guy to marry you.

A handsome guy's sperm count is small
And very often causes your downfall.
As soon as he marries you, then he starts to do
Things that won't make a family come true.
But if you become an ugly man's wife,
You'll keep having kids for the rest of your life,
An ugly man does it every time,
He'll always give you children so fine.

Don't let your friends say you have no taste,
Go ahead and marry anyway,
Though his face is ugly, his eyes don't match,
Take it from me, he's got a better batch.

"Say girlfriend!"
"Hey girlfriend!"
"Saw your husband the other day."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, he's ugly."
"Yeah, he's ugly, but he sure makes beautiful babies!"
"Yeah? Okay."

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

5. only because the handsome ones get vasectomies?

I'm guessing. Since they probably screw around more often.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

6. It's all the masturbating

Their little swimmer factories are well-practiced.

[lk9550]

7. How do you define "ugly"?

That's the question.