Recent advances in the study of gynodioecy: the interface of theory and empiricism.
BACKGROUND
In this review we report on recent literature concerned with studies of gynodioecy, or the co-occurrence of female and hermaphrodite individuals in natural plant populations. Rather than review this literature in its entirety, our focus is on the interplay between theoretical and empirical approaches to the study of gynodioecy.


METHODS
Five areas of active inquiry are considered. These are the cost of restoration, the influence of population structure on spatial sex-ratio variation, the influence of inbreeding on sex expression, the signature of cyto-nuclear coevolution on the mitochondrial genome, and the consequences of mitochondrial paternal leakage.


CONCLUSIONS
Recent advances in the study of gynodioecy have been made by considering both the ecology of female:hermaphrodite fitness differences and the genetics of sex expression. Indeed theory has guided empiricism and empiricism has guided theory. Future advances will require that some of the methods currently available only for model organisms be applied to a wider range of species.
McCauley
David E
DE
Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37235, USA. david.e.mccauley@vanderbilt.edu
Bailey
Maia F
MF
D005075:Biological Evolution; D035264:Flowers / Q000502:physiology*; D007178:Inbreeding; D008928:Mitochondria / Q000378:metabolism; D008954:Models, Biological; D011157:Population Dynamics