Slow-ripening fruits drove some Berchemia vines to abandon seed-making entirely
Tian X, Zhao Q, Ma H, Zhang Q, Chen Q
Reproductive Biology
Berchemia vines, relatives of buckthorn, thread through forests across Asia and Africa, and understanding why some populations produce male-only plants alongside bisexual ones helps explain why certain woody plants never seem to fruit in your garden despite looking healthy.
Most flowering plants have flowers with both male and female parts, but a rare few species have some plants that are purely male alongside normal bisexual ones. Scientists studying a group of climbing shrubs called Berchemia found that this odd arrangement evolved because the plants started producing fruits that take a full two years to ripen, which is such a costly process that some plants gave up making seeds entirely and just supplied pollen. That shift to slow-ripening fruit itself seems to have been triggered by a major global cooling event about 34 million years ago.
Key Findings
Androdioecy (coexistence of male-only and hermaphrodite individuals) evolved once within Berchemia, confined entirely to one clade (Berchemia IV) where all species also share two-year fruit ripening.
The genus originated ~55.55 million years ago in the early Eocene, with major diversification tied to the Eocene-Oligocene Transition cooling event around 34 million years ago.
Two-year fruit ripening evolved independently twice in Berchemia, and the metabolic trade-off it imposes is proposed as the selective pressure driving the shift away from hermaphroditism.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Researchers traced how an unusual plant reproductive system, where a species has both male-only and hermaphrodite individuals, evolved in the genus Berchemia (a group of woody vines and shrubs). Using genome-wide data, they found this rare mating strategy likely evolved once, driven by the metabolic burden of fruits that take two years to ripen, a trait that itself emerged during a period of global cooling roughly 34 million years ago.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Evolution of androdioecy in Berchemia (Rhamnaceae) revealed by phylogenomics and ancestral character reconstruction.
Androdioecy is an extremely rare sexual system in angiosperms, and its evolutionary origins and potential mechanisms remain poorly understood. The presence of androdioecy in Berchemia provides a va...
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Berchemia is a genus of plants in the family Rhamnaceae, named after Dutch botanist Berthout van Berchem. They are climbing plants or small to medium-sized trees that occur mostly in Southeast Asia, with one species in North America.