Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, 25 Willcocks Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3B2, Canada.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2010 Feb 12;365(1539):351-68. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2009.0212.
Charles Darwin studied floral biology for over 40 years and wrote three major books on plant reproduction. These works have provided the conceptual foundation for understanding floral adaptations that promote cross-fertilization and the mechanisms responsible for evolutionary transitions in reproductive systems. Many of Darwin's insights, gained from careful observations and experiments on diverse angiosperm species, remain remarkably durable today and have stimulated much current research on floral function and the evolution of mating systems. Here I review Darwin's seminal contributions to reproductive biology and provide an overview of the current status of research on several of the main topics to which he devoted considerable effort, including the consequences to fitness of cross- versus self-fertilization, the evolution and function of stylar polymorphisms, the adaptive significance of heteranthery, the origins of dioecy and related gender polymorphisms, and the transition from animal pollination to wind pollination. Post-Darwinian perspectives on floral function now recognize the importance of pollen dispersal and male outcrossed siring success in shaping floral adaptation. This has helped to link work on pollination biology and mating systems, two subfields of reproductive biology that remained largely isolated during much of the twentieth century despite Darwin's efforts towards integration.
查尔斯·达尔文研究花卉生物学超过 40 年，并撰写了三本关于植物繁殖的主要著作。这些著作为理解促进异花受精的花卉适应和生殖系统进化转变的机制提供了概念基础。达尔文的许多见解是从对不同被子植物物种的仔细观察和实验中获得的，直到今天仍然非常持久，并激发了当前对花卉功能和交配系统进化的大量研究。在这里，我回顾了达尔文对生殖生物学的开创性贡献，并概述了他致力于研究的几个主要主题的当前研究状况，包括异花受精与自花受精对适应性的影响、花柱多态性的进化和功能、异型雄蕊的适应意义、雌雄同体和相关性别多态性的起源，以及从动物传粉到风媒传粉的转变。对花卉功能的后达尔文观点现在认识到花粉传播和雄性异交成功对塑造花卉适应性的重要性。这有助于将传粉生物学和交配系统这两个生殖生物学的分支领域联系起来，尽管达尔文努力将它们整合在一起，但这两个分支领域在 20 世纪的大部分时间里仍然基本处于孤立状态。
