CSR ecological strategies and plant mating systems: outcrossing increases with competitiveness but stress-tolerance is related to mixed mating

Evolution of Mating Systems: Outcrossing versus Selfing

Mating systems vary enormously among groups of organisms. This has led to diverse definitions and approaches for investigating their evolution and maintenance. Animal mating systems are characterized by different patterns of parental investment in offspring and variation in the extent to which sexual selection shapes male and female traits (see chapter VII.4). A primary focus of most studies is...

Mating Systems and Strategies

applicability. There is not enough discussion about possible empirical approaches to the niche concept (Chapter 4). Although this is probably due to niche hypotheses being very difficult to test empirically, it will be necessary if their framework is to be adopted at all. The authors boldly claim that the niche framework is able to provide explanatory hypotheses about macroecological and macro-...

The distribution of plant mating systems: study bias against obligately outcrossing species.

Early models of plant mating-system evolution argued that predominant outcrossing and selfing are alternative stable states. At least for animal-pollinated species, recent summaries of empirical studies have suggested the opposite-that outcrossing rates do not show the expected bimodal distribution. However, it is generally accepted that several potential biases can affect conclusions from surv...

Mating Systems and Strategies of Tropical Fishes

Plant mating systems in a changing world.

There is increasing evidence that human disturbance can negatively impact plant-pollinator interactions such as outcross pollination. We present a meta-analysis of 22 studies involving 27 plant species showing a significant reduction in the proportion of seeds outcrossed in response to anthropogenic habitat modifications. We discuss the evolutionary consequences of disturbance on plant mating s...