to evaluate fertility status and mating type distribution of cryphonectria parasitica, causal agent of chestnut blight in guilan province, four sites in two main growing regions of: shaft (visrud, taleghan and babarekab), and rezvanshahr (doran) were investigated. during the study, fifty four isolates of c. parasitica were examined. c. parasitica isolates were crossed with each of the two matin...

Optimal mating frequencies differ between sexes as a consequence of the sexual differentiation of reproductive costs per mating, where mating is normally more costly to females than males. In mating systems where sexual reproduction is costly to females, sexual conflict may cause both direct (i.e. by reducing female fecundity or causing mortality) and indirect (i.e. increased risk of mortality,...

Reconstructing sociosexual variables such as mating system and social organization from fragmentary fossils and other sources of data remains a major challenge in understanding the evolution of behavioral and morphological diversity within the primate order. Often, a particular mating system can lead to the evolution of novel behavior (e.g., ‘‘competitive’’ paternal care in tamarins; Garber, 19...

BACKGROUND Sex differences in reproductive investment play a crucial role in sexual conflict. One intriguing aspect of sexual conflict is the evolution of female multiple mating (polyandry), particularly in systems where females receive no obvious direct benefits from males, and where mating is highly costly. Here, theory predicts that polyandrous females can increase their reproductive success...

Mating systems play a central role in determining population genetic structure and the methods to be used to develop new cultivars and preserve the variability of a crop. A Brassica napus crop called nabicol is grown in northwestern Spain. Knowledge on its mating system is needed in order to manage the germplasm correctly and design breeding strategies. The aims of this work were to study the m...

Plant mating systems have profound effects on levels and structuring of genetic variation and can affect the impact of natural selection. Although theory predicts that intermediate outcrossing rates may allow plants to prevent accumulation of deleterious alleles, few studies have empirically tested this prediction using genomic data. Here, we study the effect of mating system on purifying selec...

The evolution of mating signals and preferences assists speciation by facilitating assortative mating within diverging lineages, thereby closing down conduits of gene flow between lineages. However, sexual communication traits are frequently subject to stabilizing selection, suggesting that new variants will be selected against, thereby discouraging their divergent evolution. Pleiotropic mutati...

BACKGROUND Mating-type loci of mushroom fungi contain master regulatory genes that control recognition between compatible nuclei, maintenance of compatible nuclei as heterokaryons, and fruiting body development. Regions near mating-type loci in fungi often show adapted recombination, facilitating the generation of novel mating types and reducing the production of self-compatible mating types. C...

Fungal populations that reproduce sexually are likely to be genetically more diverse and have a higher adaptive potential than asexually reproducing populations. Mating systems of fungal species can be self-incompatible, requiring the presence of isolates of different mating-type genes for sexual reproduction to occur, or self-compatible, requiring only one. Understanding the distribution of ma...

Although a large portion of plant and animal species exhibit intermediate levels of outcrossing, the factors that maintain this wealth of variation are not well understood. Natural enemies are one relatively understudied ecological factor that may influence the evolutionary stability of mixed mating. In this paper, we aim for a conceptual unification of the role of enemies in mating system expr...