Talk:Sexual system

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Animals versus plants[edit]

Among animal species, the sexual system is the distribution of the types of (haploid) gametes produced by (diploid) individuals. (With exceptions such as the haploid males in Hymenoptera.)

Plants have an alternation of generations, where a diploid sporophyte generation produces spores which give rise to haploid gametophytes which produce haploid gametes. Among vascular plants, where the sporophyte generation is dominant, the sexual system is the distribution of the types of gametophytes produced. Within flowering plants, the classification is elaborated to the distribution of the types of flowers producing different sets of types of gametophytes. The same probably applies to gymnosperms, but hermaphrodite strobili seem to be rare (but a web search reports their presence in Ephedra and Fitzroya) and most gymnosperms are monoecious (e.g. Pinus) or dioecious (e.g. Gingko.) Possibly this definition of sexual system applies to all seed plants, including the extinct classes.

I don't know offhand how the term is applied to the gametophyte dominant bryophytes (mosses, liverworts, and hornworts), but I recall seeing references to dioecious mosses, so I can infer that the concept is applied.

The concept of sexual system is presumably not applicable to prokaryotes, and less certainly to isogamous eukaryotes. That leaves various additional groups where the concept is used - such as green algae (a recent report seems to identify a volvocid species are trioecious, though dioecy is the norm), brown algae and fungi. Lavateraguy (talk) 09:40, 31 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Linnaeus[edit]

A different sense of sexual system is Linnaeus' artificial classification scheme for plants, based on the numbers of stamens and carpels in flowers. That might be worth an article, with a hatnote here, if it doesn't already have one. Lavateraguy (talk) 09:44, 31 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Structure of article[edit]

I think that it should be possible to structure the article better than alphabetically. Perhaps a split between animals and gametophyte-dominant plants on the one hand, and sporophyte-dominant plants on the other. Lavateraguy (talk) 09:47, 31 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Another possibility is

all individuals hermaphrodite - synoecy, monoecy, trimonoecy, simultaneous hermaphroditism, sequential hermaphoditism, ?paradioecy
no individuals hermaphrodite - dioecy/gonochorism, ?paradioecy
some individuals hermaphrodite - androdioecy, gynodioecy, trioecy, ...

Lavateraguy (talk) 11:44, 31 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A guess a split for animals and plants could work.CycoMa (talk) 21:04, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Source may be useful[edit]

[This source] may be useful for this article.CycoMa (talk) 14:44, 20 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sequential monoecy[edit]

I did research on sequential monoecy but had a hard time finding a definition for it. There are reliable sources that mention it some of them are even notable so it’s worth a mention.CycoMa (talk) 07:03, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]