F1 plants resulting from crosses between parents of different strains often exhibit improved fitness, known as heterosis, or also hybrid vigor. Hybrids are heavily used in modern agriculture and could be part of the solution to address the challenge of feeding an ever-growing world population. However, heterosis declines in the F2 and subsequent generations because […]
Gamete formation in sexually reproducing plants begins with formation of a “mother cell” that undergoes meiosis to generate haploid spores. Haploid spores further develop into gametophytes within which gametes differentiate. In flowering plants (angiosperms), including crop systems, the female mother cell, called the “megaspore mother cell” (MMC) develops within ovules that grow out of the […]
Contrary to animals, sex chromosomes in flowering plants (angiosperms) have evolved at least hundreds of times independently, providing an opportunity to unravel the mechanisms underlying their repeated evolution. In the XY system, the Y chromosome dominantly confers male identity: XY individuals are males whereas XX are females. Possible models to explain the emergence of XY […]