Self-sterility in flowering plants: preventing self-fertilization increases family diversification rates.

ABSTRACT:

Background and scope

New data are presented on the distribution and frequency of self-sterility (SS) - predominantly pre-zygotic self-incompatibility (SI) systems - in flowering plants and the hypothesis is tested that families with self-sterile taxa have higher net diversification rates (DRs) than those with exclusively self-compatible taxa using both absolute and relative rate tests.

Key results

Three major forms of SI systems (where pollen is rejected at the stigmatic, stylar or ovarian interface) are found to occur in the oldest families of flowering plants, with times of divergence >100 million years before the present (mybp), while post-fertilization SS and heterostyly appear in families with crown ages of 81 and 87 mybp, respectively. It is also founnd that many (22)

SUBMITTER: Ferrer MM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3400452 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature