Estimation of mating system parameters in an evolving gynodioecous population of cultivated sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.)

Cultivated plants have been molded by human-induced selection, including manipulations of the mating system in the twentieth century. How these manipulations have affected realized parameters of the mating system in freely evolving cultivated populations is of interest for optimizing the management of breeding populations, predicting the fate of escaped populations and providing material for experimental evolution studies. To produce modern varieties of sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.), self-incompatibility has been broken, recurrent generations of selfing have been performed and male sterility has been introduced. Populations deriving from hybrid-F1 varieties are gynodioecious because of the segregation of a nuclear restorer of male fertility. Using both phenotypic and genotypic data at 11 microsatellite loci, we analyzed the consanguinity status of plants of the first three generations of such a population and estimated parameters related to the mating system. We showed that the resource reallocation to seed in male-sterile individuals was not significant, that inbreeding depression on seed production averaged 15–20% and that cultivated sunflower had acquired a mixed-mating system, with ∼50% of selfing among the hermaphrodites. According to theoretical models, the female advantage and the inbreeding depression at the seed production stage were too low to allow the persistence of male sterility. We discuss our methods of parameter estimation and the potential of such study system in evolutionary biology.