Inferring outcrossing in the homothallic fungus Sclerotinia sclerotiorum using linkage disequilibrium decay.

ABSTRACT: The occurrence and frequency of outcrossing in homothallic fungal species in nature is an unresolved question. Here we report detection of frequent outcrossing in the homothallic fungus Sclerotinia sclerotiorum. In using multilocus linkage disequilibrium (LD) to infer recombination among microsatellite alleles, high mutation rates confound the estimates of recombination. To distinguish high mutation rates from recombination to infer outcrossing, 8 population samples comprising 268 S. sclerotiorum isolates from widely distributed agricultural fields were genotyped for 12 microsatellite markers, resulting in multiple polymorphic markers on three chromosomes. Each isolate was homokaryotic for the 12 loci. Pairwise LD was estimated using three methods: Fisher's exact test, index of association

SUBMITTER: Attanayake RN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4181068 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature