RESULTS
All fluid viscosity measures collected from the female reproductive
tracts of each focal Peromyscus species are reported in Table 1.
We found that the viscosity of fluids in both the uterus and the oviduct
significantly differed based on mating system in Peromyscus mice.
More specifically, polyandrous species have significantly more viscous
fluid in the uterus (LM: F1,1255 = 27.09, p <
0.001) but significantly less viscous fluid in the oviduct (LM:
F1,1755 = 24.7, p < 0.001) than monogamous
species (Figure 1). Within-species analyses revealed that fluids were
significantly more viscous when collected from the uterus compared to
the oviduct in P. maniculatus , P. leucopus , and P.
californicus , but the opposite was true in P. eremicus andP. polionotus ; no difference was observed in the viscosity of
uterine fluid or oviductal fluid in P. gossypinus , however (Table
1).
We found that the reproductive fluid pH of the focal polyandrous
species, P. maniculatus , was significantly higher within the
uterus (LM: F1,18 = 17.05 p < 0.001)
and oviduct (LM: F1,18 = 14.39, p <
0.01) compared to its monogamous congener, P. polionotus (Table
2, Figure 2). However, we found no differences in calcium concentrations
between these species in either the fluids collected from the uterus
(LM: F1,18 = 2.005, p = 0.174) or from the
oviduct (LM: F1,18 = 0.3423, p = 0.566; Table 2,
Figure 3). Within both species, the fluid collected from the uterus had
a significantly higher pH than the oviduct (paired t-test: P.
maniculatus t = 21, df = 9, p < 0.001; P.
polionotus t = 6.986, df = 9, p < 0.001; Figure
2). In P. maniculatus , the fluid collected from the uterus was
significantly more calcemic (paired t-test: t = 3.95, df = 9,p < 0.01), a pattern that was not observed in P.
polionotus (paired t-test: t = 1.98, df = 9, p = 0.079).