Your browser version may not work well with NCBI's Web applications. More information here...
1: Nature. 1991 May 23;351(6324):315-7.Click here to read Links
Comment in:
Nature. 1991 May 23;351(6324):273-4.

Transition from haploidy to diploidy.

Perrot V, Richerd S, Valéro M.

Laboratoire de Génétique et Evolution des Populations Végétales, URA CNRS, Villeneuve d'Ascq, France.

As a direct consequence of sex, organisms undergo a haploid and a diploid stage during their life cycle. Although the relative duration of haploid and diploid phases varies greatly among taxa, the diploid phase is more conspicuous in all higher organisms. Therefore it is widely believed that diploidy offers more evolutionary possibilities and is thus nearly always selected for. We have now performed computer simulations to investigate one possible advantage of diploidy, that is, protection against the expression of deleterious mutations. Instead of comparing isolated haploid and diploid populations, we considered interbreeding haploids and diploids. Diploids invaded the population only when the dominance degree of a single deleterious mutation was smaller than about 1/2, and the condition allowing diploidy to invade depended on how harmful the mutation was.

PMID: 2034274 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Recent Activity