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Review

Nature Reviews Genetics 3, 274–284 (1 April 2002) | doi:10.1038/nrg776

The evolution of plant sexual diversity

Spencer C. H. Barrett

Charles Darwin recognized that flowering plants have an unrivalled diversity of sexual systems. Determining the ecological and genetic factors that govern sexual diversification in plants is today a central problem in evolutionary biology. The integration of phylogenetic, ecological and population-genetic studies have provided new insights into the selective mechanisms that are responsible for major evolutionary transitions between reproductive modes.