Factors accounting for limited sexual reproduction in a long-lived unisexual plant species.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Plant dispersal directly depends on reproduction success, and hence, on sexual systems. In bryophytes, wherein fertilization involves a continuous film of water between male and female sexual organs, reproduction in unisexual species involves the sympatric distribution of male and female sex-expressing individuals. Here, we determine whether these conditions are controlled by the environment. In particular, we test the hypotheses that (i) sex-expressing males and females exhibit different ecological niches and (ii) environmental variation drives sex expression, sporophyte formation, and hence, dispersal capacities.

Methods

We scored 1,080 specimens of the unisexual moss Abietinella abietina across Sweden as non-sex expressing, expressing female or male, o

SUBMITTER: Bisang I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11850334 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature