One fundamental signature of reinforcement is elevated prezygotic reproductive isolation between related species in sympatry relative to allopatry. However, this alone is inadequate evidence for reinforcement, as traits conferring reproductive isolation can occur as a by-product of other forces. We conducted crosses between Silene latifolia and S. diclinis, two closely related dioecious floweri...

The dioecious plant Silene latifolia possesses evolutionarily young sex chromosomes, and so serves as a model system to study the early stages of sex chromosome evolution. Sex chromosomes often differ distinctly from autosomes in both their structure and their patterns of evolution. The S. latifolia Y chromosome is particularly unique owing to its large size, which contrasts with the size of sm...

Silene latifolia is a well-studied model system for plant XY sex determination. Three maleness factors are thought to function on the Y chromosome, gynoecium suppression factor (GSF), stamen-promoting factor (SPF), and male fertility factor (MFF), and their deletions result in hermaphrodites, anther defects, and pollen defects, respectively. Although a framework map of the Y chromosome exists, ...

White campion (Silene latifolia, Caryophyllaceae) is a classical model species for studies of sex determination and chromosome evolution in dioecious plants. Deletion mapping this revealed the presence two Y-linked determining genes—the stamen promoting factor (SPF) gene gynoecium suppressing (GSF), which inspired development classic ‘two genes’ dioecy evolution. We recently identified GSFY tha...

Here we compare gene orders on the Silene latifolia sex chromosomes. On the basis of the deletion mapping results (11 markers and 23 independent Y chromosome deletion lines used), we conclude that a part of the Y chromosome (covering a region corresponding to at least 23.9 cM on the X chromosome) has been inverted. The gradient in silent-site divergence suggests that this inversion took place a...

The evolution of dioecy from hermaphroditism allows for avoidance self-pollination, and its evolutionary background has been investigated both experimentally theoretically since it was first proposed by Darwin. To reproduce this evolution, we screened hermaphroditic mutants Silene latifolia using heavy-ion beam or γ-ray irradiation characterized the phenotypes their floral organs. Our scatterpl...

A male flower-specific gene SlMF1 was isolated from male flower buds of the dioecious plant Silene latifolia. SlMF1 is expressed in all the floral meristems at the very early stage of development in both male and female flower buds. At the mature stage of development in male flower buds, SlMF1 transcripts were specifically accumulated in pollen mother cells, tapetal cells, and the developing ti...

Classical studies have established that, during meiosis, the X and Y chromosomes of the model dioecious plant Silene latifolia pair over a region at the ends of their q arms. We used fluorescence in situ hybridization of two molecular markers to demonstrate that this widely accepted model is incorrect. From these data we conclude that the homologous arm of the X chromosome is the p arm and that...

We report the development of 60 microsatellite markers on four species of the fungal complex Microbotryum, causing anther smut of the Caryophyllaceae. Microsatellites were found in four expressed sequence tag (EST) libraries, built from isolates of M. lychnis-dioicae, M. violaceum sensus stricto, M. lagerheimii and M. dianthorum, collected, respectively, from the plants Silene latifolia, S. nut...