EvoLunch Seminar: Leonie Moyle (Indiana University)

Most flowering plants and multicellular animals reproduce sexually, so could experience common forces and constraints acting upon their reproductive processes. Among these are forces driving change in postmating prezygotic (PMPZ) traits, and the emergence of PMPZ isolating barriers, including those mediated by male-male (‘sperm’) competition and cryptic female choice. Broad analogies can be drawn between these processes in plants and animals, but how mechanistically unified are they? And what consequences do their differences have for general expectations about the evolution of PMPZ traits, including their influence on PMPZ isolation in speciation? I’ll explore these questions, by examining some key points of intersection and departure between plants and animals, some emerging empirical patterns of PMPZ evolution in angiosperms, and what these might mean for variation in PMPZ evolution across different reproductive biologies.