Androdioecy

Androdioecy is a reproductive system characterized by the coexistence of males and hermaphrodites. Androdioecy is rare in comparison to the other major reproductive systems: dioecy, gynodioecy and hermaphroditism. In animals, androdioecy has been considered an important stepping stone in the transition from dioecy to hermaphroditism, and vice versa. Androdioecy is a reproductive system characterized by the coexistence of males and hermaphrodites. Androdioecy is rare in comparison to the other major reproductive systems: dioecy, gynodioecy and hermaphroditism. In animals, androdioecy has been considered an important stepping stone in the transition from dioecy to hermaphroditism, and vice versa. The fitness requirements for androdioecy to arise and sustain itself are theoretically so improbable that it was long considered that such systems do not exist. Particularly, males and hermaphrodites have to have the same fitness, in other words the same number of offspring, in order to be maintained. However, males only have offspring by fertilizing eggs or ovules of hermaphrodites, while hermaphrodites have offspring both through fertilizing eggs or ovules of other hermaphrodites and their own ovules. This means that all else being equal, males have to fertilize twice as many eggs or ovules as hermaphrodites to make up for the lack of female reproduction.