Sperm competition is "
competition between
sperm of two or more
males for the
fertilization of an
ovum" (Parker 1970). Sperm competition is often compared to having
tickets in a
raffle; a male has a better chance of winning (i.e. fathering offspring) the more tickets he has (i.e. the more sperm he inseminates a female with). However, sperm are costly to produce (Olsson et al, 1997; Wedell et al, 2002) and the energy may be spent elsewhere such as defending a territory to the exclusion of other males; the distribution of resources are called
strategies. The optimum amount is the
evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS).
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Competition not for access to females but for fertilization. A type of sexual selection.
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