Low siring success of females with an acquired male function illustrates the legacy of sexual dimorphism in constraining the breakdown of dioecy

Santos del Blanco, Luis; Tudor, Eleri; Pannell, John R. (2019) - Low siring success of females with an acquired male function illustrates the legacy of sexual dimorphism in constraining the breakdown of dioecy - Ecology Letters

Dioecy has often broken down in flowering plants, yielding functional hermaphroditism. We reasoned that evolutionary transitions from dioecy to functional hermaphroditism must overcome an inertia of sexual dimorphism, because modified males or females will express the opposite sex- ual function for which their phenotypes have been optimised. We tested this prediction by assess- ing the siring success of monoecious individuals of the plant Mercurialis annua with an acquired male function but that are phenotypically still female-like. We found that pollen dispersed by female-like monoecious individuals was ~ 1/3 poorer at siring outcrossed offspring than pollen from monoecious individuals with an alternative male-like inflorescence. We conclude that whereas dioecy might evolve from functional hermaphroditism by conferring upon individuals cer- tain benefits of sexual specialisation, reversion from a strategy of separate sexes to one of com- bined sexes must overcome constraints imposed by the advantages of sexual dimorphism. The breakdown of dioecy must therefore often be limited to situations in which outcrossing cannot be maintained and where selection favours a capacity for inbreeding by functional hermaphrodites.

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