Experimental sexual selection in Chlamydomonas

Abstract

Sexual and asexual lines of the unicellular chlorophyte Chlamydomonas reinhardtii were propagated for about 100 sexual cycles and 1000 vegetative cycles in contrasted environments, liquid and solid growth media, in order to generate divergent natural and sexual selection. Sexual lines were transferred by many zygotes or by a single zygote in each sexual generation. By the end of the experiment zygote production was in the order sexual mass-transfer>sexual single-zygote>asexual>ancestor. The direct response to sexual selection was large, with zygote production increasing by about two orders of magnitude, mainly because mating had become spontaneous instead of being invoked by nitrogen starvation. Asexual lines became sexually sterilized by the fixation of a single mating type. Sexual selection caused a radical shift in the gender system, with homothallism spreading to high frequency in all sexual lines of this normally heterothallic species. This may have been caused by the transposition of a mating-type gene to an autosome. No substantial degree of environment-specific mating evolved, however, and thus no sexual isolation indicative of incipient speciation. It is possible that selection experiments of this kind are unlikely to induce sexual isolation because mating-type genes evolve in a saltatory fashion.