Supplemented stallion seminal plasma can improve impaired motility due to the dilution effect in chilled Asian elephant sperm.

The study examines whether adding stallion seminal plasma can enhance the mobility of chilled Asian elephant sperm, which is often limited due to the effects of dilution.

Objective and Study Methodology

The research aims to evaluate how semen dilution influences Asian elephant sperm and whether the restoration of seminal plasma (SP) would ameliorate any negative impacts from dilution. The study involved semen collected from eight male elephants, with only samples containing at least 30% motile sperm used for experiments. The semen was stored at 4°C for 48 hours using a tris-glucose-egg yolk extender (TE).

• Experiment 1: The semen was diluted at ratios of 1:1, 1:3, 1:7, and 1:15 with TE. The researchers evaluated sperm viability, acrosome integrity, motility, and motility velocities among the different dilutions.
• Experiment 2: The study used SP from both elephants and stallions. The elephant semen, initially diluted to a 1:7 ratio, was replenished with SP to achieve a 1:2 proportion in Experiment 2.1 and restored semen diluted to a 1:15 ratio to a 1:3 proportion in Experiment 2.2. Each experiment evaluated sperm motility, viability, acrosome integrity, and motility velocities.

Findings and Conclusion

The research discovered that diluting the sperm affected its motility rates with the 1:1 dilution having greater sperm motility and motility velocities than the 1:7 and 1:15 dilutions after 48 hours of storage.

In terms of replenishing the SP, there were no significant differences in sperm viability and acrosome integrity for both experiments 2.1 and 2.2. However, they found that sperm motility and motility velocities were improved when using stallion SP after 48 hours of storage, compared to results with elephant SP or no additional SP.

In conclusion, the study demonstrated that while semen dilution can reduce sperm motility, adding stallion seminal plasma can enhance the motility of chilled and highly diluted elephant sperm.