Spore Germination Determines Yeast Inbreeding according to Fitness in the Local Environment

Spore germination determines yeast inbreeding according to fitness in the local environment.

Gene combinations conferring local fitness may be destroyed by mating with individuals that are adapted to a different environment. This form of outbreeding depression provides an evolutionary incentive for self-fertilization. We show that the yeast Saccharomyces paradoxus tends to self-fertilize when it is well adapted to its local environment but tends to outcross when it is poorly adapted. T...

What determines biological fitness? The problem of the reference environment

Organisms’ environments are thought to play a fundamental role in natural selection. However, existing conceptions of environment are so vague as to make it indeterminate which biological types are fittest, depriving the concept of natural selection of any clear sense. The “problem of the reference environment” is the problem of specifying principles which pick out those environmental condition...

Ecophysiology of Development: Spore Germination

Ecophysiology of Development: Spore Germination

Tissue Sap on Spore Germination