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50th New Phytologist Symposium

Evolution of plant mating systems

Date and location To be confirmed

Plants are unique in their enormous diversity of mating systems. Although all biological life has evolved strategies to optimize reproduction, plants have an exceptional diversity of mechanisms to determine how individuals, populations, and species reproduce along the continuum of self-fertilization and outcrossing. Plants express a breadth of sexual systems from hermaphrodism to dioecy allowing for a diversity of strategies from developmental, to genetic, to ecological that regulate selfing and outcrossing rates. The variation in mating system has ubiquitous ecological and evolutionary implications from impacts on pollinator network structure, to distributions of genetic variation, to diversification rates. This symposium will explore the diversity of plant mating systems through integration of perspectives across evolutionary biology, genetics, ecology, physiology, and developmental biology.

This symposium is planned for the 2nd half of 2027, further details on location and dates to be confirmed

Organising committee:

  • Susana Coelho, Max Planck Institute for Biology, Germany

  • Robin Hopkins, Harvard University, USA

  • Hongzhi Kong, State Key Laboratory of Systematic & Evolutionary Botany, Institute of Botany, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

  • Mark Rausher, Duke University, USA

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