[holykaw.alltop.com] Flower sex safeguards against dud sperm

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Flower sex safeguards against dud sperm

Posted by  Futurity to Holy Kaw!

Media_httpwwwfuturity_bomgo

Discovering how flowers manage the distribution of sperm among female gametes helps biologists explain why they are so widespread.

“There is a mechanism that prevents too many pollen tubes from delivering too many sperm,” says Mark Johnson, associate professor of biology at Brown University. “But the other cool thing is that there is also a way to salvage fertilization if the first father is a dud.”

Full story at Futurity.

More research news from top universities.

Photo credit: Mike Cohea/Brown

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