Female reproductive success in females versus hermaphrodites has been well documented. However, documenting a potential advantage in male fertility of male versus hermaphrodite individuals in subdioecious species is also essential for understanding the evolutionary pathway toward dioecy from hermaphroditism via gynodioecy. Siring success in terms of fruit set, fruit mass, number of seeds and me...

Sex-specifi c investment in pathogen resistance and immunity has been widely reported in animals and to a much lesser degree in plants. Here, we investigated the incidence of fungal pathogens in dioecious versus hermaphroditic plant species. We found that direct studies on diff erences between males and females in disease resistance or pathogen incidence were rare or non-existent in plants, but...

In addition to causing one of the great neglected diseases of the world, schistosomes have unusual biological features that further command attention, including their habit of living in the blood of their hosts and the presence of separate, dimorphic sexes. Phylogenetic studies including a more complete sampling of pivotal and rare schistosomes and their relatives, provide an improved framework...

Sex allocation in hermaphrodites should evolve in response to changes in the frequency of unisexuals. As predicted, it has now been demonstrated that hermaphrodites respond to the removal of males from experimental plant populations by increasing their allocation to male function.

Why are there two sexes in certain species, instead of one hermaphroditic sex? Why are Y chromosomes shorter than X chromosomes, but only in certain lineages? I propose that differences between sexes are initially determined by differential methylation in nuclear DNA between females and males, driving Muller’s ratchet. Methylation of promoters suppresses transcription, including loci coding for...