Responses to selection for postmeiotic segregation frequencies in Ascobolus immersus

A composite cross was made between 12 strains of the fungus Ascobolus immersus, six with wild-type red ascospores (w1+) and six with white ascospore mutation w1-78. A high postmeiotic segregation (PMS) frequency line was set up from colonies from ascospores from dehisced octads showing PMS, 5+ : 3w and 3+ : 5w. A low PMS line was started from ascospores from 4+ : 4w or 6+ : 2w octads, and a 'no selection' line was set up from ascospores from random octads. Colonies were crossed to tester strains to determine PMS frequencies and the selected lines were continued from ascospores of crosses of the red ascospore strain with the most extreme (e.g. high for the high line) PMS frequency with the white-ascospore strain of most extreme PMS frequency and of opposite mating type. Significant responses to selection were obtained for increased (+100%) and decreased (-58%) PMS, giving a 4.8-times difference in generation 4, with little change in the frequencies of conversion classes showing meiotic segregation (6+ : 2w and 2+ : 6w). The continuous, symmetrical, roughly normal distributions for PMS frequencies obtained when generation 5 strains were crossed to unselected tester strains are those expected if PMS frequencies are controlled by a number of polygenes, not major genes. Crosses of selected fifth-generation red-ascospore strains with extreme PMS values to base-substitution mutant w1-78, to frame-shift mutant w1-3C1 and to white-ascospore mutants w-BHj and w-9 at two loci unlinked to w1 showed that the effects of selection were not allele specific, locus specific or mutation-type specific.