Mitosis, stature and evolution of plant mating systems: low-Phi and high-Phi plants.

ABSTRACT: There is a long-recognized association in plants between small stature and selfing, and large stature and outcrossing. Inbreeding depression is central to several hypotheses for this association, but differences in the evolutionary dynamics of inbreeding depression associated with differences in stature are rarely considered. Here, we propose and test the Phi model of plant mating system evolution, which assumes that the per-generation mutation rate of a plant is a function of the number of mitoses (Phi) that occur from zygote to gamete, and predicts fundamental differences between low-Phi (small-statured) and high-Phi (large-statured) plants in the outcomes of the joint evolution of outcrossing rate and inbreeding depression. Using a large dataset of published population genetic studies o

SUBMITTER: Scofield DG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1560042 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature