title: Trait transitions in explicit ecological and genomic contexts: plant mating systems as case studies.
abstract: Plants are astonishingly diverse in how they reproduce sexually, and the study of plant mating systems provides some of the most compelling cases of parallel and independent evolutionary transitions. In this chapter, we review how the massive amount of genomic data being produced is allowing long-standing predictions from ecological and evolutionary theory to be put to test. After a review of theoretical predictions about the importance of considering the genomic architecture of the mating system, we focus on a set of recent discoveries on how the mating system is controlled in a variety of model and non-model species. In parallel, genomic approaches have revealed the complex interaction between the evolution of genes controlling mating systems and genome evolution, both genome-wide and in the mating system control region. In several cases, major transitions in the mating system can be clearly associated with important ecological changes, hence illuminating an important interplay between ecological and genomic approaches. We also list a number of major unsolved questions that remain for the field, and highlight foreseeable conceptual developments that are likely to play a major role in our understanding of how plant mating systems evolve in Nature.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Génétique et Evolution des Populations Végétales (GEPV), UMR 8198; CNRS, Université Lille 1, Sciences et Technologies, Cité Scientifique, Villeneuve d'Ascq, France, Vincent.Castric@univ-lille1.fr.
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Castric
authors.forename: Sylvain
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Billiard
authors.forename: Xavier
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Vekemans
mesh_terms: D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D059647:Gene-Environment Interaction; D018745:Genome, Plant / Q000502:physiology*; D008957:Models, Genetic; D010944:Plants / Q000235:genetics*; D012098:Reproduction / Q000502:physiology