Why so many sperm?

Question

A female only produces a few eggs, and a high proportion get fertilised. A male is profligate in sperm production, and most of these have no chance of fertilisation.
What are the evolutionary benefits of this? What is the current thinking for this wastage?
Any links or information would be greatly appreciated, its for uni project x

Answer 1

Just as women have during their period of reproduction, an egg ready for fertilization, a man needs to constantly produce sperm in order to increase his chance of reproduction.
An individual sperm would be unlikely to get through to fertilize an egg, so a man needs to shoot lots of sperm into the woman, in the biological hope that one will get through an fertilize the egg.
From a mans point of view, the sperm is not wasted because he gets a good feeling when ever he ejaculates.

The evidence that the system works is that there are so many people in the world, and babies are still being born.

The egg only needs to wait for the sperm, the sperm have to first get to the female, then enter at the correct spot, then struggle to reach the egg. The sperm have a harder time reaching the egg, than the egg has waiting, so you need a lot more sperm than eggs.

Answer 2

The actual fertilisation takes place 2 to 3 days after the actual sex. This is because the journey is long and slow, and there are loads of obstacles along the way, as well as acids that can weaken the sperm. Not all of them can make it till the end. Also, once the sperms reach the egg (by which time there's only 50-100 left), they have to butt into the egg's protective shell and destroy it bit by bit by letting the acids in the sperm head eat through the shell. That means many sacrifices have to be made until one can get through. The reason it takes so many, is also because of the difference in size. A sperm to an egg is like an ant to a ping pong ball.

So, if being sexist is what you want, then you can consider us women much stronger than men in that matter, since it takes thousands of sperm just to tackle one egg.

Answer 3

millions die en route to the egg...its a long journey for a start so some don't make it...some are malformed (ie 2 tails or heads....this is normal!!) but many are killed by the secretions in the woman..only a very small percentage get thru to even get a whiff of the egg!!
This ensures the BEST will get and fertilise the egg...ie "survival or the fittest" would fit I guess. So the fact that you or I are here is pretty much due to the "fittest" sperm and allowing at least SOME sperm to get thru.....
Its also to do with the way that cells divide (my meiosis) so that for every cell 4 are produced....all the female eggs are made as a foetus!! AND out of 4 cells, only 1 actually becomes an egg, the others are not formed.

Answer 4

The large number of sperm increases the chances that one will eventually reach the egg and fertilise it. It's not wastage, it's survival for the species.

There are many obstacles for the sperm and millions will die and never reach their destination.

One analogy that was mentioned in Biology for Life by Roberts was that the sperms' journey was equivalent to a man swimming across the Atlantic Ocean in treacle!

Note: Someone mentioned that twins are formed when two sperm nuclei fuse with an egg nucleus. Only one sperm can ever penetrate and enter an egg.

Twins are usually formed when:

1. A single fertilised egg splits in two, each then forming separate embryos - identical twins formed

2. Two separate eggs are fertilised - non-identical twins formed

Answer 5

Visit Wiki or do some research on the web, but men make a lot of sperm to do the same job is competition, you could write a note about that for evolution, btw. By making so many, men are sure to impregnate the egg by shear numbers. When more sperm impregnate the same egg, twins happen. Or Tri quad, or quin tuplets....etc.

Evolution is the changing of a species by means of breeding. Something the human line has not experienced since writing was invented. The creator of evolution, Darwin, noticed evolution, which was odd, since evolution takes millenia to occur. For his credit, it was in the early nineteenth century, so no other person could discredit his research.

Women have a hostile environment for men to endure. Yes? It gets even worse on the molecular scale as men's semen try to make their way up the vaginal canal into the ovaries. By shear numbers, some of the sperm survive, sometimes "piggy backing" with each other to stay swimming up into the ovary.

Even if the sperm make it to the ovary, it is a fifty fifty chance that that side is ovulating. Women only have one period, but two ovaries, yes. The egg side, (right or left side) is fertile, the other side is void of egg. Again, evolution as a science fails here, as the game of chance has more to do with anything.

Lets say that the sperm makes it finally to the correct side, lets say it's the left ovary that has the egg, then comes in contact with it. The vaginal walls, still lined with toxic fluids to sperm kill off the rest of the sperm. The other sperm might have carried blue eyed traits, or brown hair traits, or female, male, etc. traits. The one we are focusing on is the one that made it. That makes you and I one in a million. That is something that a test tube has never created. Even under specific conditions, the best they got was a few proteins........not a child.

Evolution is being discredited more and more now because it applies to specific organisms under specific conditions, not life in general. Evolution is linear, where life is parallel.

I hope the long answer doens't bother you, I know I have typos, but hopefully you see biology as a living, breathing science instead of a text book answer......Something woven together by God so that the birds know which bugs to eat, the bugs know which plants to eat, etc.

Its so amazing to conceptuallize the ecosystem, it must have been a female God, yes? :-)

But God is amazing and He sent His son for us to trust in, that is even more amazing.

Answer 6

Hello, about 5 millions of sperm cells ejaculated out during one time. This is a great number and because 1 they have a large way to go to fertilize the egg.
2. A large number of enzyme hyalurinodase is required to rupture the wall of egg cell which is very tough for this a large number of sperm cells are require.
It's been proved when a man goes oligospermic it do lost the potency to fertilize a woman.
And for all there reasons the large number of sperm cells ejected out.

Answer 7

yes males produces millions of sperms because ,1 some sperms are immature,weaketr and can not be able to fertilize the egg.2 alot of sperms are produced from the males because female passage is very acidic whereby the sperms die along the way before they meet the female egg and what u should bear in mind is that although sperms are produced in millions like that it is only one sperm that fertilizes the egg.

Answer 8

The reason for the high number of sperm is due to probability. The more sperm that are trying to fertilize the egg, the more chances there are for a baby to develop.

Answer 9

The sperm have a long way to swim. The more sperm the more likely one is to make it! Also, if two men release sperm into one woman, some of the different sperm do their best to prevent the others making it to the egg.

Answer 10

Cause like men sperm are lazy and if there was only one or two to find there way to goal they would get lost or give up, so having a million this sometimes guareentees one lazy sh@t might have the common sense to keep going till he gets his goal!!

Xx Sorry good lucj with your Uni project!!