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Gynodioecy
Gynodioecy is a rare breeding system that is found in certain flowering plant species in which female and hermaphroditic plants coexist within a population. Gynodioecy is the evolutionary intermediate between hermaphroditism (exhibiting both female and male parts) and dioecy (having two distinct morphs: male and female). Gynodioecy is sometimes considered a mixed breeding system alongside trioecy and androdioecy. It is also considered a dimorphic sexual system alongside dioecy and androdioecy. Gynodioecy occurs as a result of a genetic mutation that inhibits a hermaphroditic plant from producing pollen, while keeping the female reproductive parts intact. Gynodioecy is extremely rare, with fewer than 1% of angiosperm species exhibiting the breeding system. Some notable taxa that exhibit a gynodioecious mating system include ''Beta vulgaris'' (wild beet), ''Lobelia siphilitica'', ''Silene'', and Lamiaceae. Evolution Gynodioecy is often referred to as the evolutionary intermed ...
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Sexual System
A sexual system is a pattern of sex allocation or a distribution of male and female function across organisms in a species. Terms like reproductive system and mating system have also been used as synonyms. The distinction between sexual systems is not always clear due to phenotypic plasticity. Sexual systems are viewed as a key factor for genetic variation and reproductive success, and may have also led to the origin or extinction of certain species. Interests in sexual systems go back to Charles Darwin, Darwin, who found that barnacles contain species that are Androdioecy, androdioecious and some that are Dioecy, dioecious. Types of sexual systems In plants there are monomorphic sexual systems where a species has hermaphrodite, male and/or female flowers on the same plant. Monomorphic sexual systems include Monoecious (botany), monoecy, gynomonoecy, andromonoecy and trimonoecy. There are also dimorphic sexual systems like dioecy, gynodioecy and androdioecy. Mixed sexual syst ...
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Sex Determination In Silene
''Silene'' is a flowering plant genus that has evolved a dioecious reproductive system. This is made possible through heteromorphic sex chromosomes expressed as XY. ''Silene'' recently evolved sex chromosomes 5-10 million years ago and are widely used by geneticists and biologists to study the mechanisms of sex determination since they are one of only 39 species across 14 families of angiosperm that possess sex-determining genes. ''Silene'' are studied because of their ability to produce offspring with a plethora of reproductive systems. The common inference drawn from such studies is that the sex of the offspring is determined by the Y chromosome. Evolution of Sex Chromosomes Biologists have found that sex chromosomes in plants originated from pairs of autosomes. As these chromosomes diverge from their autosomal ancestor and from each other as a homologous pair, they have the potential to increase or decrease in size due to mutation and recombination. In the case of ''Sile ...
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Androdioecy
Androdioecy is a reproductive system characterized by the coexistence of males and hermaphrodites. Androdioecy is rare in comparison with the other major reproductive systems: dioecy, gynodioecy and hermaphroditism. In animals, androdioecy has been considered a stepping stone in the transition from dioecy to hermaphroditism, and vice versa. Androdioecy is sometimes referred to as a mixed breeding system with trioecy and gynodioecy. It is a dimorphic sexual system in plants alongside gynodioecy and dioecy. Evolution of androdioecy The fitness requirements for androdioecy to arise and sustain itself are theoretically so improbable that it was long considered that such systems do not exist. Particularly, males and hermaphrodites have to have the same fitness, in other words the same number of offspring, in order to be maintained. However, males only have offspring by fertilizing eggs or ovules of hermaphrodites, while hermaphrodites have offspring both through fertilizing eggs or ...
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Androdioecy
Androdioecy is a reproductive system characterized by the coexistence of males and hermaphrodites. Androdioecy is rare in comparison with the other major reproductive systems: dioecy, gynodioecy and hermaphroditism. In animals, androdioecy has been considered a stepping stone in the transition from dioecy to hermaphroditism, and vice versa. Androdioecy is sometimes referred to as a mixed breeding system with trioecy and gynodioecy. It is a dimorphic sexual system in plants alongside gynodioecy and dioecy. Evolution of androdioecy The fitness requirements for androdioecy to arise and sustain itself are theoretically so improbable that it was long considered that such systems do not exist. Particularly, males and hermaphrodites have to have the same fitness, in other words the same number of offspring, in order to be maintained. However, males only have offspring by fertilizing eggs or ovules of hermaphrodites, while hermaphrodites have offspring both through fertilizing eggs or ...
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Trioecy
Trioecy, or subdioecy, is a rare sexual system characterized by the coexistence of males, females, and hermaphrodites. It has been found in both plants and animals. Trioecy is sometimes referred to as a mixed mating system alongside androdioecy and gynodioecy. Evolution of trioecy Many speculate trioecy is a transient state and is often associated with evolutionary transitioning from gynodioecy to dioecy. Other studies show that trioecious populations originated from gonochoristic ancestors which were invaded by a mutant selfing hermaphrodite, creating a trioecious population. It has been suggested that chromosomal duplication is an important part in the evolution of trioecy. Evolutionary stability Trioecy is usually viewed as evolutionarily unstable, but its exact stability is unclear. Like in brachiopod species trioecy usually breaks into androdioecy or gynodioecy. But one study found that trioecy can be stable under nucleocytoplasmic sex determination. Another theoretical ...
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Silene
''Silene'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Caryophyllaceae. Containing nearly 900 species, it is the largest genus in the family. Common names include campion and catchfly. Many ''Silene'' species are widely distributed, particularly in the northern hemisphere. Scientific history Members of this genus have been the subject of research by preeminent plant ecologists, evolutionary biologists, and geneticists, including Charles Darwin, Gregor Mendel, Carl Correns, Herbert G. Baker, and Janis Antonovics. Many ''Silene'' species continue to be widely used to study systems, particularly in the fields of ecology and evolutionary biology.Bernasconi et al. 2009. Silene as a model system in ecology and evolution. Heredity. 103:5-14. PMI19367316/ref> The genus has been used as a model for understanding the genetics of sex determination for over a century. ''Silene'' species commonly contain a mixture of hermaphroditic and female (or male-sterile) individuals (gynodioecy), and ...
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Trioecy
Trioecy, or subdioecy, is a rare sexual system characterized by the coexistence of males, females, and hermaphrodites. It has been found in both plants and animals. Trioecy is sometimes referred to as a mixed mating system alongside androdioecy and gynodioecy. Evolution of trioecy Many speculate trioecy is a transient state and is often associated with evolutionary transitioning from gynodioecy to dioecy. Other studies show that trioecious populations originated from gonochoristic ancestors which were invaded by a mutant selfing hermaphrodite, creating a trioecious population. It has been suggested that chromosomal duplication is an important part in the evolution of trioecy. Evolutionary stability Trioecy is usually viewed as evolutionarily unstable, but its exact stability is unclear. Like in brachiopod species trioecy usually breaks into androdioecy or gynodioecy. But one study found that trioecy can be stable under nucleocytoplasmic sex determination. Another theoretical ...
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Hermaphrodite
In reproductive biology, a hermaphrodite () is an organism that has both kinds of reproductive organs and can produce both gametes associated with male and female sexes. Many Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic groups of animals (mostly invertebrates) do not have separate sexes. In these groups, hermaphroditism is a normal condition, enabling a form of sexual reproduction in which either partner can act as the female or male. For example, the great majority of tunicata, tunicates, pulmonate molluscs, opisthobranch, earthworms, and slugs are hermaphrodites. Hermaphroditism is also found in some fish species and to a lesser degree in other vertebrates. Most plants are also hermaphrodites. Animal species having different sexes, male and female, are called Gonochorism, gonochoric, which is the opposite of hermaphrodite. There are also species where hermaphrodites exist alongside males (called androdioecy) or alongside females (called gynodioecy), or all three exist in the same species ( ...
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Hermaphroditism
In reproductive biology, a hermaphrodite () is an organism that has both kinds of reproductive organs and can produce both gametes associated with male and female sexes. Many taxonomic groups of animals (mostly invertebrates) do not have separate sexes. In these groups, hermaphroditism is a normal condition, enabling a form of sexual reproduction in which either partner can act as the female or male. For example, the great majority of tunicates, pulmonate molluscs, opisthobranch, earthworms, and slugs are hermaphrodites. Hermaphroditism is also found in some fish species and to a lesser degree in other vertebrates. Most plants are also hermaphrodites. Animal species having different sexes, male and female, are called gonochoric, which is the opposite of hermaphrodite. There are also species where hermaphrodites exist alongside males (called androdioecy) or alongside females (called gynodioecy), or all three exist in the same species (called trioecy); these three systems are so ...
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Monoicous
Monoicy () is a sexual system in haploid plants (mainly bryophytes) where both sperm and eggs are produced on the same gametophyte, in contrast with dioicy, where each gametophyte produces only sperm or eggs but never both.Crandall-Stotler, B.J. & Bartholomew-Began, S.E. (2007). ''Morphology of Mosses (Phylum Bryophyta)''. In: Flora of North America Editorial Committee, eds. (1993+). ''Flora of North America North of Mexico''. 16+ vols. New York and Oxford. Volume 27, 2007.Bell, P.R. & Helmsley, A.R. (2000). ''Green plants, their origin and diversity'' (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. Both monoicous () and dioicous gametophytes produce gametes in gametangia by mitosis rather than meiosis, so that sperm and eggs are genetically identical with their parent gametophyte. It has been suggested that monoicy may have benefits in dry habitats where the ability to produce sporophytes is limited due to lack of water. Monoicy is similar to, and often conflated with, monoecy, wh ...
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Wild Thyme
''Thymus serpyllum'', known by the common names of Breckland thyme, Breckland wild thyme, wild thyme, creeping thyme, or elfin thyme, is a species of flowering plant in the mint family Lamiaceae, native to most of Europe and North Africa. It is a low, usually prostrate subshrub growing to tall with creeping stems up to long. The oval evergreen leaves are 3–8 mm long. The strongly scented flowers are either lilac, pink-purple, magenta, or a rare white, all 4–6 mm long and produced in clusters. The hardy plant tolerates some pedestrian traffic and produces odors ranging from heavily herbal to lightly lemon, depending on the variety. Description Wild thyme is a creeping dwarf evergreen shrub with woody stems and a taproot. It forms matlike plants that root from the nodes of the squarish, limp stems. The leaves are in opposite pairs, nearly stalkless, with linear elliptic round-tipped blades and untoothed margins. The plant sends up erect flowering shoots in summe ...
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Dioecy
Dioecy (; ; adj. dioecious , ) is a characteristic of a species, meaning that it has distinct individual organisms (unisexual) that produce male or female gametes, either directly (in animals) or indirectly (in seed plants). Dioecious reproduction is biparental reproduction. Dioecy has costs, since only about half the population directly produces offspring. It is one method for excluding self-fertilization and promoting allogamy (outcrossing), and thus tends to reduce the expression of recessive deleterious mutations present in a population. Plants have several other methods of preventing self-fertilization including, for example, dichogamy, herkogamy, and self-incompatibility. Dioecy is a dimorphic sexual system, alongside gynodioecy and androdioecy. In zoology In zoology, dioecious species may be opposed to hermaphroditic species, meaning that an individual is either male or female, in which case the synonym gonochory is more often used. Most animal species are dioecious (gon ...
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