Plant Autogamy

Plant Autogamy Self fertilization or autogamy is a reproductive strategy used by some species of plants. Autogamous plants tend to have fewer flowers and the flowers themselves tend to be smaller with smaller reproductive structures than those of plants that reproduce sexually. The flowers also have fewer ovules and less pollen. Self fertilization has advantages and disadvantages. If a species reproduces exclusively through autogamy, genotypes are replicated with little change. Sometimes, it is advantageous for …

…One major disadvantage of self pollination is that, because many genes are homozygous with two of the same alles, there is a higher frequency of deleterious traits that only are expressed when the plant gets two recessive copies of an alle. Some strands of a plant that self pollinates may become sterile and surviving lines often have reduced vigor and fertility. Bibliography Briggs D. & Walter S.M. 1997. Plant Variation and Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.