杏吧原创

SIZE might not matter so much when it comes to fertilising eggs under water,
say biologists in Australia. Fertilisation can be a hit-or-miss affair for
marine animals that release eggs and sperm into the water, and bigger eggs are
thought to make bigger targets for sperm to hit. But now it seems that the
chemicals some eggs produce to attract sperm are just as important. Jon
Havenhand at Flinders University in Adelaide and his colleagues tracked sperm as
it fertilised sea-squirt eggs. The eggs released a sperm-attracting chemical
into the water, which made fertilisation 45 times more likely than would
normally be expected from their tiny size, the researchers will report in
Marine Biology. 鈥淭he consequences for sperm attractants have been
ignored until now, but they鈥檙e clearly very important,鈥� says Havenhand.