Sex determination in the androdioecious plant Datisca glomerata and its dioecious sister species D. cannabina

Abstract

Datisca glomerata is an androdioecious plant species containing male and hermaphroditic individuals. Molecular markers and crossing data suggest that, in both D. glomerata and its dioecious sister species D. cannabina, sex is determined by a single nuclear locus, at which maleness is dominant. Supporting this conclusion, an amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) is heterozygous in males and homozygous recessive in hermaphrodites in three populations of the androdioecious species. Additionally, hermaphrodite × male crosses produced 1:1 sex ratios, while hermaphrodite × hermaphrodite crosses produced almost entirely hermaphroditic offspring. No perfectly sex-linked marker was found in the dioecious species, but all markers associated with sex mapped to a single linkage group and were heterozygous in the male parent. There was no sex-ratio heterogeneity among crosses within D. cannabina collections, but males from one collection produced highly biased sex ratios (94% females), suggesting that there may be sex-linked meiotic drive or a cytoplasmic sex-ratio factor. Interspecific crosses produced only male and female offspring, but no hermaphrodites, suggesting that hermaphroditism is recessive to femaleness. This comparative approach suggests that the hermaphrodite form arose in a dioecious population from a recessive mutation that allowed females to produce pollen.