hide
Free keywords:
-
Abstract:
Over the last few years, the brown algae have emerged as a highly valuable group to study the evolution of sex chromosomes and reproductive systems because they exhibit a remarkable diversity of sexual traits and because there have been multiple transitions between sexual systems over a relatively short evolutionary time period. The maintenance of a high level of diversity of sexual features in a single, evolutionarily young group is outstanding among the eukaryotes, and points to a complex evolutionary history of the underlying regulatory systems. I will describe how we are using the brown algae to gain novel insights into the mechanisms and evolutionary trajectories of sex determination systems and to reveal the functional and evolutionary interactions between the sex chromosomes and key reproductive and life cycle traits.
