Journal
SCIENCE
Volume 330, Issue 6003, Pages 493-495Publisher
AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1126/science.1194513
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Funding
- NSF [DEB-0919089]
- Division Of Environmental Biology
- Direct For Biological Sciences [0919089] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Identifying traits that affect rates of speciation and extinction and, hence, explain differences in species diversity among clades is a major goal of evolutionary biology. Detecting such traits is especially difficult when they undergo frequent transitions between states. Self-incompatibility, the ability of hermaphrodites to enforce outcrossing, is frequently lost in flowering plants, enabling self-fertilization. We show, however, that in the nightshade plant family (Solanaceae), species with functional self-incompatibility diversify at a significantly higher rate than those without it. The apparent short-term advantages of potentially self-fertilizing individuals are therefore offset by strong species selection, which favors obligate outcrossing.
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