XVI International Botanical Congess

This study tests for sex-specific patterns and correlations among clonal traits: growth, growing tips and asexual reproduction, and describes population sex ratios along a stream in Trinidad in Marchantia inflexa. In a greenhouse, we planted gemmae from field-collected isolates: 10 females & 8 males. Six times, we harvested replicates of each isolate, estimating trait means. Males had higher levels of asexual reproduction, grew slower and produced fewer growing tips than females. Tips were negatively correlated with asexual reproduction and positively correlated with growth. These sex-specific patterns may lead to single sex patches, as indicated by the sex-expressing state of field patches. Of 209 patches, 83% were not expressing sex, 9% contained male- & female-expressing thalli, and the rest contained only female- (4%) or male-expressing (4%) thalli.