Semelparity: “Fuck it, I’m gonna nut to death”
Comment on brain blowing orgasms
Contramuffin@lemmy.world 1 week agoThere’s a specific life history strategy called semelparity, which is what you’re describing (breeding once then dying). To my understanding, this is incentivized if the chances of getting a second attempt to breed are too low, and so it becomes more evolutionarily advantageous to simply go all out on the first attempt
TeamAssimilation@infosec.pub 1 week ago
perestroika@lemm.ee 1 week ago
Yes. A bit similar process in sea-dwelling salmons: migrating from salt water into fresh water (quite a big metabolic challenge in itself), traveling up rapids to suitable spawning places (often a long and arduous journey)… after they’ve accomplished that, their chances of returning alive are quite low. So they mostly die. But river-dwelling trouts spawn many times in life, because their migration isn’t as costly.
I would suspect that something in how octopuses mate has an element of “return being costly” - it could be a metabolic return to the feeding and growing state instead of a physical return.
omxxi@feddit.org 1 week ago
That makes sense, if there is an organism that is a very good predator, and the chances to breed a second time are too low, then if the organism doesn’t die it will be consuming the resources of those who can breed. Natural selection must prioritize having descendents over long living, because not having descendents is extinction.
Mothra@mander.xyz 1 week ago
Thanks, one solid answer! It could be that it used to be an advantage at some point and now it’s just perpetuated
roguetrick@lemmy.world 1 week ago
To be clear, it’s still an advantage and for the ones that it isn’t they don’t die after mating. Most cephalopods are both predators and prey that life cycle results in a very high mortality rate. The really big ones though, like giant octopuses, have to work so hard to get so big that they tend to not die after mating.