ArticleMolecular biology and evolution2021
Dioecy Is Associated with High Genetic Diversity and Adaptation Rates in the Plant Genus Silene.
Article in Molecular biology and evolution, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers.
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Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed.
- Gene-level complexity explains genome-wide variation in the distribution of fitness effects.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
- What has population genomics told us about the dynamics of selection and plant adaptation?Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Review
- Silene, a versatile model system: from sex and genome evolution to ecology and speciation.The New phytologist · 2026Review
- Separated Sexes, Shared Consequences: Disentangling Predictors of Genetic Diversity in Dioecious Angiosperms.Ecology and evolution · 2026Review
- Assessment of Genetic Variability and Population Structure of Betula utilis subsp. jacquemontii in the Western Himalayan Region of India.Biochemical genetics · 2026Article
- Evolution of Sex-Biased Gene Expression During Transitions to Separate Sexes in the Silene Genus.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Unraveling Evolution in the Homoploid Complex ofEcology and evolution · 2025Article
- Water Stress Promotes Secondary Sexual Dimorphism in Ecophysiological Traits of Papaya Seedlings.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Genetic Isolation among Four Lineages of Silene nutans.Plant & cell physiology · 2025Article
- Prickly Problems:Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- The dynamic regulatory network of stamens and pistils in papaya.BMC plant biology · 2025Article
- Large range sizes link fast life histories with high species richness across wet tropical tree floras.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Physiological Responses ofPlants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Mating systems and recombination landscape strongly shape genetic diversity and selection in wheat relatives.Evolution letters · 2024Article
- Random epigenetic inactivation of the X-chromosomal HaMSter gene causes sex ratio distortion in persimmon.Nature plants · 2024Article
- Sexy ways: approaches to studying plant sex chromosomes.Journal of experimental botany · 2024Review
- Genetic diversity and population structure of an insect-pollinated and bird-dispersed dioecious treeEcology and evolution · 2024Article
- Probing of plant transcriptomes reveals the hidden genetic diversity of the family Secoviridae.Archives of virology · 2024Article
- Pericentromeric recombination suppression and the 'large X effect' in plants.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Between but Not Within-Species Variation in the Distribution of Fitness Effects.Molecular biology and evolution · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
About 15,000 angiosperm species (∼6%) have separate sexes, a phenomenon known as dioecy. Why dioecious taxa are so rare is still an open question. Early work reported lower species richness in dioecious compared with nondioecious sister clades, raising the hypothesis that dioecy may be an evolutionary dead-end. This hypothesis has been recently challenged by macroevolutionary analyses that detected no or even positive effect of dioecy on diversification. However, the possible genetic consequences of dioecy at the population level, which could drive the long-term fate of dioecious lineages, have not been tested so far. Here, we used a population genomics approach in the Silene genus to look for possible effects of dioecy, especially for potential evidence of evolutionary handicaps of dioecy underlying the dead-end hypothesis. We collected individual-based RNA-seq data from several populations in 13 closely related species with different sexual systems: seven dioecious, three hermaphroditic, and three gynodioecious species. We show that dioecy is associated with increased genetic diversity, as well as higher selection efficacy both against deleterious mutations and for beneficial mutations. The results hold after controlling for phylogenetic inertia, differences in species census population sizes and geographic ranges. We conclude that dioecious Silene species neither show signs of increased mutational load nor genetic evidence for extinction risk. We discuss these observations in the light of the possible demographic differences between dioecious and self-compatible hermaphroditic species and how this could be related to alternatives to the dead-end hypothesis to explain the rarity of dioecy.
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