regulated by, and suited to, the environment in which they reproduce. In many teleosts, which spawn in either freshwater or seawater, sperm motility is initiated by osmotic shock when sperm are ejaculated. These osmolality dependent regulatory systems are quite different in freshwater cyprinid teleosts, such as carp, gold fish and zebrafish, and marine teleosts, such as the pufferfish and floun...

What is sperm storage? Sperm storage is most commonly defined as the maintenance of sperm inside a female’s reproductive tract for an extended period of time. Because the fate of sperm post-copulation is important for understanding sexual selection, sperm storage is a particularly interesting characteristic that may have drastic impacts on the operation of post-copulatory sexual selection. Sper...

spermatogenesis and spermiogenesis, mam-malian spermatozoa leaving the testis appear to be morphologically mature but clearly are immature from a functional standpoint; that is, they have acquired neither progressive motility nor the ability to fertilize a metaphase II–arrested egg. Although progressive motil-ity is acquired and signaling pathways mature during sperm transit through the epididy...

The sensitive state of conservation several endemic fish species such as Iberian toothcarp (Aphanius iberus) and Valencia (Valencia hispanica) has led governments to consider the implementation measures preserve their populations. However, limited knowledge about reproductive biology these makes it necessary investigate different aspects cycle. In this sense, main objectives work were i) advanc...

This paper aims to overview recent insights in sperm surface remodelling pertinent to fertilization. A basic understanding of this remodelling is required to interpret the high amount of data appearing from high-throughput identification techniques for proteins presently applied in reproductive biology. From the extensive lists of protein candidates identified by proteomics, only a few are reco...

In patients with non-obstructive azoospermia, testicular sperm extraction (TESE) is a method of choice to recover spermatozoa as a male therapeutic approach in intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) programmes. However, the efficacy of TESE in this indication is burdened by a frequent failure of sperm recovery, which renders useless both the invasive testicular intervention and ovarian stimula...

Inbreeding depression, or the reduction in fitness due to mating between close relatives, is a key issue in biology today. Inbreeding negatively affects many fitness-related traits, including survival and reproductive success. Despite this, very few studies have quantified the effects of inbreeding on vertebrate gamete traits under controlled breeding conditions using a full-sib mating approach...