Gender of dioecious palms and climate

[Phoenikakias]

When grown several plants from seeds, I observed that around two thirds of them turn out male and only one third female.  It  happens often with Chamaedorea and Phoenix spp.  On the condition that this was not pure coincidence, I wonder whether this is natural, which of course would raise the further question about what evolutionary adaptation should serve. Or even whether it is caused by environmental factors, like light and temperature fluctuation year round, which would further raise question whether in other more tropical places this gender ratio would change.

[Phoenikakias]

Such a so interesting topic... Shame!

[Turtlesteve]

There was a thread recently observing the same thing for windmill palms.  I had 4 flower this year for the first time and it was 3 male, 1 female.  My first hunch was that perhaps gender was not genetically controlled, but was environmental.  For example eggs of turtles/tortoises and alligators/crocodiles can become male or female depending on incubation temperature.  On asking google, however, it appears that gender in date palms at least has been confirmed to be genetic:

https://www.natureasia.com/en/nmiddleeast/article/10.1038/nmiddleeast.2018.126

If this is true for other palms, perhaps the genetics don't favor a 50/50 split of genders.  However it also seems likely that other palms are different since dioceous species don't share a common ancestor (e.g. the trait did not evolve only once).  If "female" gender were tied to a recessive gene it could be hypothetically possible to get 1/4 females and 3/4 males.  But when I've seen date palms I have not noticed the same gender bias (e.g. they were closer to 50/50).

Interesting article on trachycarpus that says some plants change from male to female as they grow bigger:  

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255614220_Gender_variation_in_a_threatened_and_endemic_palm_Trachycarpus_takil_Becc

So in this case it would seem that looking at a population of younger plants would result in male bias.  Setting seed is likely expensive resource wise, so it would make sense for smaller palms to be male and larger ones to be female.  And the surplus of males my help ensure that all female flowers are successfully pollinated so that the resource expenditure is not wasted.  But how do the palms "know" do do all of this? 

So seems like several possible options here...

Steve