摘要

Although microorganisms account for the largest fraction of Earth's biodiversity, we know little about how their reproductive barriers evolve. Sexual microorganisms such as Saccharomyces yeasts rapidly develop strong intrinsic post-zygotic isolation, but the role of extrinsic isolation in the early speciation process remains to be investigated. We measured the growth of F-1 hybrids between two incipient species of Saccharomyces paradoxus to assess the presence of extrinsic post-zygotic isolation across 32 environments. More than 80 A, of hybrids showed either partial dominance of the best parent or over-dominance for growth, revealing no fitness defects in F-1 hybrids. Extrinsic reproductive isolation therefore likely plays little role in limiting gene flow between incipient yeast species and is not a requirement for speciation.

  • 出版日期2017-6