DIVERS | Reproductive strategies and diversity of flowering plants
This document presents the main results of the FRB-CESAB DIVERS group “From reproductive strategies to species diversity: how evolution of breeding systems and associated traits shapes plant species diversity?“.
Angiosperms (flowering plants) present an exceptional diversity of breeding systems, with variation both in gender distribution within and among individuals (from hermaphroditism to separate sexes) and in mating patterns (from strict outcrossing to predominant selfing).
Breeding systems have been shown to affect species diversification and to be associated with other life-history and ecological traits. Consequently, breeding systems could be an important determinant of the observed species diversity in flowering plants.
The FRB-CESAB DIVERS project aimed at exploring the hypothesis that the combination of traits associated with breeding systems could be an important key to understanding evolutionary success and plant species diversity. This project seeked to define integrated evolutionary strategies among these traits and to investigate how these strategies can shape the diversification process in flowering plants. This approach should help to identify key components that could explain why some groups of flowering plants flowering plant are more diverse than others, and how combination of traits could influence invasiveness and extinction risks.
This document summarizes in a few pages the group’s context and objectives, the methods and approaches used, the main findings, as well as the impact for science, society, and both public and private decision-making.
