Dioecy in Flowering Plants: From the First Observations of Prospero Alpini in the XVI Century to the Most Recent Advances in the Genomics Era

Alessandro Vannozzi, Fabio Palumbo, Margherita Lucchin and Gianni Barcaccia
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Alessandro Vannozzi: Department of Agronomy, Food, Natural Resources, Animals and Environment (DAFNAE), Campus of Agripolis, University of Padova, V. le dell’Università 16, 35020 Legnaro, Italy
Fabio Palumbo: Department of Agronomy, Food, Natural Resources, Animals and Environment (DAFNAE), Campus of Agripolis, University of Padova, V. le dell’Università 16, 35020 Legnaro, Italy
Margherita Lucchin: Department of Agronomy, Food, Natural Resources, Animals and Environment (DAFNAE), Campus of Agripolis, University of Padova, V. le dell’Università 16, 35020 Legnaro, Italy
Gianni Barcaccia: Department of Agronomy, Food, Natural Resources, Animals and Environment (DAFNAE), Campus of Agripolis, University of Padova, V. le dell’Università 16, 35020 Legnaro, Italy

Agriculture, 2022, vol. 12, issue 3, 1-10

Abstract: Prospero Alpini was an Italian physician, botanist and scientist. Born in Marostica, in the Republic of Venice, in his youth he served in the Milanese army, but in 1574 he decided to study medicine at the University of Padova, where he graduated in 1578. After a short period as a doctor in Camposampiero (Padova, Italy), he became the personal doctor of Giorgio Emo, the appointed consul in Cairo in Egypt. In this way, he was able to devote himself to the study of botany. In this country, from the cultivation practices of the date palm, he described for the first time the sexual dimorphism in plants, later adopted as the basis of Linnaeus’ scientific classification system. Since then, this behavior, termed dioecy, has been described in other plant species, and many advances have been made in understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying this phenomenon, especially with the advent of genomics. Starting from a brief description of Prospero’s life and his pioneering scientific contribution, we illustrated the two main models explaining dioecism. This was achieved by taking a cue from two plant species, grapevine and poplar, in which genomics and single molecule sequencing technologies played a pivotal role in scientific advance in this field.

Keywords: Phoenix dactylifera; Vitis spp.; Populus spp.; sex-determining region; hermaphroditism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
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