TreeBASE Search-Matrices for study 12257

@ARTICLE{TreeBASE2Ref20333, author = {P?draic Corcoran and David J Jacobson and Martin I Bidartondo and Patrick Hickey and Jennifer F. Kerekes and John W. Taylor and Hanna Johannesson}, title = {Quantifying functional heterothallism in the pseudohomothallic ascomycete Neurospora tetrasperma}, year = {2012}, keywords = {}, doi = {}, url = {http://}, pmid = {}, journal = {Fungal Biology}, volume = {}, number = {}, pages = {}, abstract = {Neurospora tetrasperma is a pseudohomothallic filamentous ascomycete that has evolved from heterothallic ancestors. Throughout its life cycle, it is predominantly heterokaryotic for mating-type, and thereby self-fertile. However, studies of two strains of N. tetrasperma have revealed the occasional production of self-sterile asexual and sexual spores of a single mating-type, indicating that it can be functionally heterothallic. Here, we report the extensive sampling and isolation of natural, heterokaryotic, strains of N. tetrasperma from the United Kingdom (UK): 99 strains were sampled from Surrey, England, and four from Edinburgh, Scotland. We verified by phylogenetic analyses that these strains belong to N. tetrasperma. We isolated cultures from single germinated asexual spores (conidia) from 17 of these newly sampled UK strains, and 16 previously sampled strains of N. tetrasperma from New Zealand (NZ). Our results show that the N. tetrasperma strains from the UK population produced a significantly greater proportion of self-sterile, homokaryotic conidia than the NZ population: the proportion of homokaryotic conidia was 42.6% (133/312 spores) and 15.3% (59/386), from the UK and the NZ populations, respectively. Although homokaryons recovered from several strains show a bias for one of the mating types, the total ratio of A to a mating type in homokaryons (UK: 72/61, NZ 28/31) did not deviate significantly from the expected 1:1 ratio for either of these populations. These results indicate that different populations exhibit differences in their life cycle characteristics, and a higher degree of outcrossing may be expected from the UK population. This study points to the importance of studying multiple populations when investigating an organism with a complex life cycle, as previously undetected differences between populations may be revealed.} }