Sexual dimorphism and rapid turnover in gene expression in pre-reproductive seedlings of a dioecious herb

Sexual dimorphism in morphology, physiology or life history traits is common in dioecious plants at reproductive maturity, but it is typically inconspicuous or absent in juveniles. Although plants of different sexes probably begin to diverge in gene expression both before their reproduction commences and before dimorphism becomes readily apparent, to our knowledge transcriptome-wide differential gene expression has yet to be demonstrated for any angiosperm species