Data from: The role of pleiotropy in the maintenance of sex in yeast

Interestingly, the sporulation rate in cultures propagated asexually at large population size improved by 11%, on average, indicating that selection on asexual function effectively eliminated most of the mutations deleterious to sporulation ability. These results suggest that pleiotropy between mutations’ effects on asexual fitness and sexual fitness was predominantly positive, at least for the mutations accumulated in this experimental evolution study.

A positive correlation between growth rate and sporulation rate among lines also pro- vided evidence for positive pleiotropy. These results demonstrate that, at least under certain circum- stances, selection acting on asexual fitness can help to maintain sexual function.

Usage notes

Maximum Likelihood Estimator Mathematica file that summarizes and plots results of the program mlgenomeu.c to infer maximum likelihood estimates of the mutation rate and effect size, using two fitness assays (sporulation rate, growth rate). MLanalysis.nb Statistical Analyzer Mathematica file that contains all of the growth rate data obtained from the Bioscreen as well as all of the sporulation data. This file performs all of the major statistical analyses on these datasets reported in Hill and Otto (2007). sliding window 06 NEW.nb Sporulation Rate Data sporedata.xls