Summary
The western North American shrub Atriplex canescens is predominantly dioecious, but most populations contain some monoecious individuals. A tetraploid half-sib family consisting of 665 individuals was evaluated annually for floral phenotype (sex expression) from 1972-75. The autumn/winter of 1972-73 started out mild and wet and then turned unusually cold. The half-sib family expressed a very different sex ratio in the 1973 growing season than in the three other years. A sex-determining mechanism is proposed of XXXX for pistillate plants, XXYY for staminate plants, and XXXY for monoecious plants and those that vacillate among floral phenotypes from year to year.
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McArthur, E. Environmentally induced changes of sex expression in Atriplex canescens. Heredity 38, 97–103 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1038/hdy.1977.10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/hdy.1977.10
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