Strong female bias in the expressed sex ratio ofSaccogyna viticulosa(L.) Dumort. (Marchantiophyta: Saccogynaceae) in Britain

Current and historical factors drive variation of reproductive traits in unisexual mosses in Europe: A case study

“…Despite some alternative processes that could also contribute to the tendency above (e.g., current climatic differences between long‐ and short‐term persistent populations, or differences in their phylogeographic history), this result is remarkable and has been suggested for other bryophytes based on genetic data and considering the glacial periods of the Pleistocene (Alonso‐García et al, 2020). Since our “young populations” have been potentially established since the LGM (from 19 000 years BP onwards), the persistence of such a historical signal suggests that shifts in sex ratios could operate at the scale of thousands of years (Cronberg, 2000; Alonso‐García et al, 2020; Bisang et al, 2020; Blackstock, 2020). Recent evidence by Hedenäs et al (2021), supports the hypothesis of a gradual shift in population sex ratio from balanced toward skewed sex ratios.…”

“…This effect would be more pronounced in long‐term persistent populations, where the effects of differences in vegetative growth rates might have been accumulating for a longer time. Hence, the climatic fluctuations of the Quaternary and the concomitant consequences on plant distributional ranges (Hewitt, 2000; Svenning & Skov, 2007; Giesecke et al, 2017) might also shed light on the current spatial variation in the reproductive traits of unisexual bryophytes (Cronberg et al, 2006; Kirchheimer et al, 2018; Blackstock, 2020; Bisang et al, 2020).…”