Sex-biased genes and metabolites explain morphologically sexual dimorphism and reproductive costs in Salix paraplesia catkins.

ABSTRACT: Dioecious species evolved from species with monomorphic sex systems in order to achieve overall fitness gains by separating male and female functions. As reproductive organs, unisexual flowers have different reproductive roles and exhibit conspicuous sexual dimorphism. To date, little is known about the temporal variations in and molecular mechanisms underlying the morphology and reproductive costs of dioecious flowers. We investigated male and female flowers of Salix paraplesia in three flowering stages before pollination (the early, blooming and late stages) via transcriptional sequencing as well as metabolite content and phenotypic analysis. We found that a large number of sex-biased genes, rather than sex-limited genes, were responsible for sexual dimorphism in S. paraplesia flowers an

SUBMITTER: Cai Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8166972 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature