Genetic basis and adaptive significance of repeated scent loss in selfing Capsella species Floral scent is an important way for plants to communicate with insects but scent emission has been lost or strongly reduced during the transition from pollinator mediated outbreeding to selfing. The shift from outcrossing to selfing is not only accompanied by scent loss but also by a reduction in other pollinator attracting traits like petal size and can be observed multiple times among angiosperms. These changes are summarized by the term selfing syndrome and represent one of the most prominent examples of convergent evolution within the plant kingdom. In this work the genus Capsella was used as a model to study convergent evolution in two closely related selfers with separate transitions to self fertilization. Compared to their outbreeding ancestor C. grandiflora the emission of benzaldehyde as main compound of floral scent is lacking or strongly reduced in the selfing species C. rubella and C. orientalis. In C. rubella the loss of benzaldehyde was caused by mutations to cinnamate:CoA ligase CNL1 but the biochemical basis and ...