No evidence for extrinsic post-zygotic isolation in a wild Saccharomyces yeast system

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 F₁ hybrids between two incipient species of Saccharomyces paradoxus to assess the presence of extrinsic post-zygotic isolation across 32 environments. More than 80% of hybrids showed either partial dominance of the best parent or over-dominance for growth, revealing no fitness defects in F₁ hybrids. Extrinsic reproductive isolation therefore likely plays little role in limiting gene flow between incipient yeast species and is not a requirement for speciation.