The influence of demography and local mating environment on sex ratios in a wind-pollinated dioecious plant.

ABSTRACT: Negative frequency-dependent selection should result in equal sex ratios in large populations of dioecious flowering plants, but deviations from equality are commonly reported. A variety of ecological and genetic factors can explain biased sex ratios, although the mechanisms involved are not well understood. Most dioecious species are long-lived and/or clonal complicating efforts to identify stages during the life cycle when biases develop. We investigated the demographic correlates of sex-ratio variation in two chromosome races of Rumex hastatulus, an annual, wind-pollinated colonizer of open habitats from the southern USA. We examined sex ratios in 46 populations and evaluated the hypothesis that the proximity of males in the local mating environment, through its influence on gametophyti

SUBMITTER: Pickup M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3605851 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature