The evolutionary dynamics of plant mating systems: how bias for studying ‘interesting’ plant reproductive systems could backfire

Abstract Background and Aims
An “abominable mystery”: angiosperm sexual systems have been a source of both interest and frustration for the botanical community since Darwin. The evolutionary stability, overall frequency, and distribution of self-fertilization and mixed-mating systems have been explored in a variety of studies. However, there has been no recent study which directly addresses our knowledge of mating systems across families, the adequacy of existing data, or the potential for biases.
Scope
Here we present an updated dataset of mating systems across flowering plants covering 6,781 species and 212 families based on a synthesis of existing reviews and an original literature review using Web of Science. We assess the adequacy of this data by evaluating for bias indicating enrichment of certain families or sexual systems. 
Key Results
We find that the vast majority of our data on mating systems comes from a small number of disproportionally sampled families, and that famil..., , ### Data files hosted by Dryad

* Data_Dryad.zip 70.76 MB

## README: The evolutionary dynamics of plant mating systems: how bias for studying ‘interesting’ plant reproductive systems could backfire

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.cc2fqz6hr](https://datadryad.org/submission/10.5061/dryad.cc2fqz6hr)

### Description of the data and file structure

We conducted a literature review to synthesize efforts to quantify mating systems across angiosperms. This data allowed us to examine patterns of potential bias in the existing data based on factors such as family or sexual system, as well as how the data available on plant mating systems has changed over time. Broadly, we revisited the question of the underlying distribution of selfing and the adequacy of our existing data to unravel the complex dynamics of plant mating system evolution. 

#### Files and variables

##### Supplemental files hosted on Zenodo: 

##### Files: \"Data\_Dryad.zip\"

**Description:** This zip file contains a folder na..., , **Changes after May 23, 2025:** 

File \"Input_Data_MS.xlsx\" updated to correct for misalignment of author column relative to the data for entries originating from Prior and Busch (2021), index numbers 1268-2039. This change does not impact downstream analysis, but should ensure references provided to the original sources for selfing information are accurate.