The budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a long-standing model for the three-dimensional organization of eukaryotic genomes. However, even in this well-studied model, it is unclear how homolog pairing in diploids or environmental conditions influence overall genome organization. Here, we performed high-throughput chromosome conformation capture on diverged Saccharomyces hybrid diploids to ...

Polyploidy, the doubling of genomic content, is a widespread feature, especially among plants, yet its macroevolutionary impacts are contentious. Traditionally, polyploidy has been considered an evolutionary dead end, whereas recent genomic studies suggest that polyploidy has been a key driver of macroevolutionary success. We examined the consequences of polyploidy on the time scale of genera a...

The aim of this work was to evaluate the carotenoid content and genetic variability of banana accessions from the Musa germplasm collection held at Embrapa Cassava and Tropical Fruits, Brazil. Forty-two samples were analyzed, including 21 diploids, 19 triploids and two tetraploids. The carotenoid content was analyzed spectrophotometrically and genetic variability was estimated using 653 DArT ma...

Despite a great deal of theoretical attention, we have limited empirical data about how ploidy influences the rate of adaptation. We evolved isogenic haploid and diploid populations of Saccharomyces cerevisiae for 200 generations in seven different environments. We measured the competitive fitness of all ancestral and evolved lines against a common competitor and find that in all seven environm...

Whole-genome duplication (polyploidy) occurs frequently and repeatedly within species, often forming new lineages that contribute to biodiversity, particularly in plants. Establishment and persistence of new polyploids may be thwarted by competition with surrounding diploids; however, climatic niche shifts, where polyploids occupy different niches than diploid progenitors, may help polyploids o...

DNA sequencing has shown individual bdelloid rotifer genomes to contain two or more diverged copies of every gene examined and has revealed no closely similar copies. These and other findings are consistent with long-term asexual evolution of bdelloids. It is not entirely ruled out, however, that bdelloid genomes consist of previously undetected pairs of sequences so similar as to be identical ...

In order to uncover patterns and processes of segregation of co-existing cytotypes, we investigated a zone in the eastern Alps (Austria) where diploid and hexaploid individuals of the alpine herb Senecio carniolicus Willd. (Asteraceae) co-occur. Linking the fine-scale distribution of cytotypes to environmental and spatial factors revealed segregation along an ecological gradient, which was also...