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Premise: In hermaphroditic plants, the evolution of self-fertilization is driven by two major forces; the cost of outcrossing or Fisher's automatic advantage of selfing and inbreeding depression. Seminal theoretical works have established that an inbreeding depression threshold of 0.5 governs the evolution. Below that threshold, selfing evolves, above that, outcrossing evolves. Does this threshold apply to cleistogamous plants?
Methods: I developed a model using a Lloydian approach to analyze the evolution of cleistogamy.
Results: I showed that the inbreeding depression threshold does not apply in cleistogamous species, and that because cleistogamous (closed) flowers do not export pollen, Fisher's advantage of selfing is totally cancelled.
Conclusions: In line with model predictions, I discuss the fact that cleistogamous species often exhibit low inbreeding depression in empirical studies.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ajb2.16390 | DOI Listing |
Anim Biosci
September 2025
Graduate school of environmental, life and natural science, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan.
Objectives: The objective of this study was to evaluate genomic inbreeding in Japanese Black cattle and its effects on reproductive traits.
Methods: The study analyzed reproductive records and SNP data from Japanese Black cattle born between 2001 and 2005, resulting in 8,553 records from large farms. Genomic inbreeding was assessed using SNP data from 782 animals.
J Anim Ecol
September 2025
Centre for Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation, School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.
Inbreeding and the associated increase in homozygosity and potential accumulation of deleterious alleles may reduce fitness in a process known as inbreeding depression. Mechanisms to mitigate reproduction between close relatives, ranging from pre-mating mate choice to post-mating gamete selection, have evolved across taxa. In external fertilisers like Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), where females have limited control over paternity, mechanisms of inbreeding avoidance can be expected to evolve at the gamete level.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFG3 (Bethesda)
August 2025
Department of Biology and Center for Genomics & Systems Biology, New York University, New York, New York 10012, USA.
Outbreeding populations harbor large numbers of recessive deleterious alleles that reduce the fitness of inbred individuals, and this inbreeding depression potentially shapes the evolution of mating systems, acting as a counterweight to the inherent selective advantage of self-fertilization. The population biological factors that influence inbreeding depression are numerous and often difficult to disentangle. We investigated the utility of obligately-outcrossing Caenorhabditis nematodes as models for inbreeding depression.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMC Plant Biol
August 2025
Department of Agronomy and Plant Breeding, College of Agriculture, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, 84156-83111, Iran.
Background: As climate change intensifies, perennial plants face more frequent drought periods throughout their lifespan. Drought stress memory in certain plants significantly enhances their adaptability to challenging environmental circumstances. However, in open-pollinated crops, this process is influenced by population plasticity due to the type and degree of genetic diversity, and inbreeding depression.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPLoS Pathog
August 2025
Disease Intervention and Prevention Program, Texas Biomedical Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas, United States of America.
Schistosomes are obligately sexual blood flukes that can be maintained in the laboratory using freshwater snails as intermediate and rodents as definitive hosts. The genetic composition of laboratory schistosome populations is poorly understood: whether genetic variation has been purged due to serial inbreeding or retained is unclear. We sequenced 19 - 24 parasites from each of five laboratory Schistosoma mansoni populations and compared their genomes with published exome data from four S.
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