The stability of conversion frequencies with time was investigated in Ascobolus immersus. There were usually marked reductions in gene conversion frequencies at locus wl as crosses matured, to about one third of the initial values. This applied to all six wl alleles tested, irrespective of their molecular nature, and at all temperatures used. Asci dehiscing early from an apothecium had much higher conversion frequencies than those dehiscing late, but there were no differences between apothecia maturing at different times within a cross. Alleles at four loci unlinked to wl were also tested. All four showed significant changes, though not in all crosses; three loci showed decreases in conversion frequency with time, while one showed an increase. The relative frequencies of different conversion classes often changed with time. These changes appear to result from alterations in locus-specific recombination initiation and in repair of base mispairs in hybrid DNA, not from differential maturation rates of different ascal segregation classes. These effects could cause misinterpretation of quantitative tests of recombination models from gene conversion data.

A second chromosome of Drosophila melanogaster (symbol 31.1) isolated from a natural population of North-Western Peloponnesus (at a distance of 8 km from the city of Patras) was found to induce recombination in heterozygous males, both in the second and third chromosomes. The present study also revealed the following points. (1) The phenomenon is temperature-sensitive with higher male recombination at 29 °C than at 25 or 15 °C. (2) The temperature-sensitive period is during the larval stage where premeiotic divisions of germ cells take place. (3) Suppression of male recombination in both the second and third chromosomes occurred when 31.1/CyL4 females were used in the matings, and (4) the suppression of male recombination is caused by a cytoplasmic factor of the CyL4/Pm stock.

Changes in brain size, body size and their co variance are reported from a long-term replicated directional selection experiment on body weight gain in rats. Two strains had been selected for increased and two for decreased weight gain between 3 and 9 weeks of age, and there were two randomly selected control lines. Selection produced significant changes in body weight in all selected lines. Divergence from the controls occurred in brain size in those strains selected for increased weight gain; no significant divergence was found for the strains selected for decreased weight gain. Divergence among unselected control lines suggests that genetic drift occurred in expression of brain size. Sexual dimorphism in response to selection results from sex differences in heritabilities and genetic correlations in relevant traits. In spite of considerable change in body size and brain size, no significant change in their covariation occurred either between the selection lines or between sexes. The relevance of these results to a brain and body size ‘scaling effect’ during evolutionary divergence is discussed.

The R factors, R56 and R64, interfere with the growth of several otherwise unrelated phages, including λ, P22 and T7. In addition, λvir is inhibited more strongly in λ lysogens carrying either R factor when the prophage has an intact O – P region. Interference does not occur in certain str A R+ hosts but may reappear if they also carry other mutations affecting ribosomal proteins. Host mutants not permitting interference were isolated but were not strA. Non-interfering plasmid mutants were also isolated, of which some also failed to cause interference after transfer to a different host genus.

Plasmodium formation in the Myxomycete Physarum polycephalum normally involves fusion of haploid amoebae, carrying different alleles at the mating type (mt) locus, to give diploid plasmodia. Strains carrying the mth allele are capable of undergoing the amoebal–plasmodial transition with high efficiency within amoebal clones, resulting in the formation of haploid plasmodia. NMG mutagenesis of mth amoebae, followed by an enrichment procedure, was used to isolate mutants in which such clonal plasmodium formation was either delayed or absent. Thirteen mutants of the second type were analysed. Three of these were temperature-sensitive for plasmodium formation. All thirteen mutants were able to form diploid crossed plasmodia when mixed with a mt1 strain. Three new genes were identified and designated npfA, npfB and npfC. A mutant allele of npfA rendered clonal plasmodium formation temperature-sensitive, but did not prevent crossing at the non-permissive temperature with derived strains carrying the same mutant allele. No recombination was detected between npfB or npfC and mt, but npfA was unlinked to mt and a locus (apt-1) shown in a previous study to be involved in plasmodium formation. The genes npfB and npfC were distinguished by complementation analysis. Strains of the genotype npfB−; npfC+ behaved in the same way as strains carrying the mt2 allele. The nature of the mutants and the role of the mating-type locus in the initiation of plasmodium formation are discussed.

In this paper an exact treatment is given for the stochastic behaviour of the frequency of haploid genotypes in an infinite population when the absolute fitnesses of the two genotypes vary at random over generations. The main qualitative result from this treatment is that natural selection will favour that allele with the largest geometric mean fitness. A diffusion equation is derived whose solution is identical to the exact solution. The drift coefficient for this equation is of the form − μp(1 − p) + σ2(½ − p)p(l − p). This differs from the drift coefficient used in previous treatments of this problem and reduces the rate of quasi-fixation. Various waiting time problems are solved using this diffusion equation.

The usual conventions are relaxed to permit the introduction of a curved genetic model that shows some attractive features. Linear polygene analysis is examined in the light of this more flexible model. It is shown that great care is necessary in the choice of scale, since variances are more sensitive than means to small deviations from additivity. Inclusion of the F3 is necessary for successful prediction by extrapolation. The genetical validity of any type of polygene analysis is discussed. The new model is quite promising for the analysis of means; but I think that the (more ambitious) analysis of variances is likely to remain intractable, for both genetical and statistical reasons.

The major type I insert sequence for the 28S rRNA genes of Drosophila melanogaster has been mapped within the chromosomes using a probe synthesized from a cloned sequence containing the entire 5·4 kb segment. The genomic distribution was shown to be complex in that the insert sequence occurred next to many different types of sequences, in addition to occurring as an insert in the 28S rRNA genes of the X chromosome. In situ hybridization of mitotic chromosomes showed most of the insert units not contained in the ribosomal genes to be located near the ribosomal gene cluster on the X chromosome. Additional sites were detected in polytene chromosomes in region 102C, 8–12 and in the hetero-chromatin of the autosomes.

Variation in spermatozoal β-glucuronidase levels of inbred strains of mice was found to parallel the known variation usually studied in liver with one outstanding exception: BALB/cJ spermatozoa, but not other tissues, showed an anomalously low level. This difference in spermatozoal β-glucuronidase activity was studied in hybrids and backcrosses but the data did not establish the number of loci affecting the difference. The levels of β-glucuronidase in F1's between C3H/HeJ and A/J depended markedly on the sex direction of the cross.

Transcription of X chromosomal DNA has been examined autoradio-graphically in various 1X2A and 2X2A normal larvae and 1X2A (+ X fr) and 2X2A (+ X fr) segmental aneuploid larvae of species Drosophila melanogaster. The segmental aneuploids contained duplications for the segment 9A–11A and 15D–ISA of the X chromosome. Results show that in the aneuploid male containing 9A–11A duplicaton both the homologous segments involved in the aneuploidy are autonomously hyperactive; their combined activity, measured by X/A grain ratio, is found to be nearly 70% more than the activity in normal male and about 100% more than that in diplo-X female. In the aneuploid female, containing the aneuploid segment 15D–18A and having three doses of the segment of the X chromosome, the activity was over 100% more than the diplo-X activity. The per gene dose activity for the two segments in the aneuploid male and female, respectively, is also significantly higher than their male and female counterparts. The possible role of lack of contiguity of the genetic segments and an intra-nuclear variation has been ruled out by appropriate analysis. We, therefore, interpret these findings to be due to an autonomous expression of the X linked compensatory genes, resulting from a primary modulation in the organization of the entire X chromosome. The autosomal signal then renders the individual genetic locus hyperactive.

1. A test is described for the development of sexual isolation between a wild and a derived population of D. melanogaster adapted to a new diet, containing EDTA. Other experiments had shown that adaptation to the new diet involved genetic changes in all chromosomes. Also fitness was reversed on the alternative diets under crowded competitive conditions.

2. In three replicated trials flies from each population were used to establish paired cage populations, supplied with the medium to which each was adapted, and the pairs of cages were joined to allow restricted immigration between them. The experiment was run for about twenty-five generations.

3. After fifteen and twenty-five generations, flies were collected from each cage to provide eggs which were cultured on the alternative diets to determine how far the members of pairs of populations differed from each other and from the foundation population. There were striking differences between the sub-populations and the parent populations, attributable to immigration between the former. Judged by the differences in performance between the sub-populations, genetic differences persisted but these were minor compared with the differences between the parent populations.

4. Tests of preferential mating on the part of flies from paired sub-populations were entirely negative.

5. Fourteen generations of selection for positive assortative mating failed to provide evidence of sexual isolation between the two basic populations, adapted to different diets.

6. From these and other experiments it is inferred that sympatric divergence is improbable in a species like D. melanogaster.

In order to understand the evolution of genetic systems in which two genes are tandemly repeated (small multigene family) such as has been recently found in the haemoglobin α loci of primates, haemoglobin β loci of mouse and rarbit and other proteins, a population genetics approach was used. Special reference was made to the probarility of gene identity (identity coefficient), when unequal crossing-over is continuously occurring as well as random genetic drift, inter-chromosomal recombination and mutation. Two models were studied, cycle and selection models. The former assumes that unequal crossing-over occurs in cycles of duplication and deletion, and that the equilibrium identity coefficients were obtained. The latter is based on more realistic biological phenomena, and in this model it is assumed that natural selection is responsible for eliminating chromosomes with extra or deficient gene dose. Unequal crossing-over, inter-chromosomal recombination and natural selection lead to a duplication-deletion balance, which can then be treated as though it were a cycle model. The basic parameter is the rate of duplication-deletion which is shown to be approximately equal to 2(u + 2β)X, where u is the unequal crossing-over rate, 2β is the inter-chromosomal recombination rate and X is the frequency of chromosomes with three genes or of that with one gene. Genetic variation of the globin gene family, of which gene organization is known in most detail, is discussed in the light of the present analyses.

The Haldane-Muller principle of mutation load is generalized so as to be applicable to both cases of strong and very weak selection with any time variation. It is proved that in an infinite asexual haploid population, the average Malthusian parameter m¯ of a population, the evolution rate ν, and the total mutation rate μ satisfy the relation ∂m¯/∂/∂μ = ν/μ−1, so long as each Malthusian parameter is independent of μ. A similar result is also true in a diploid population under genie selection. It is discussed how the above relation gives a restriction on the possible range of values of relative evolution rate ν/μ.

With the aim of knowing the probable magnitude of non-random association between inversion chromosomes and electromorphs, both deterministic and stochastic studies are conducted on the evolutionary change of non-random association, which is defined as the difference in the frequency of a given allele between inversion and non-inversion chromosomes. In these studies inversion chromosomes are assumed to be subject to selection but electromorphs are selectively neutral, and recombination is allowed to occur between inversion and non-inversion chromosomes with a low frequency. The deterministic study has shown that in a variety of selective schemes for inversion chromosomes the non-random association decays at a rate equal to the recombination value in every generation. Thus, if the recombination value is of the order of 10−5 ˜ 10−4, it would take a long time for the non-random association to disappear. Furthermore, the stochastic study has indicated that random genetic drift generates non-random association of inversions and electromorphs in finite populations and the standard error of non-random association often becomes larger than the mean. In addition to these problems the time required for the electromorph frequencies in the inversion and noninversion chromosomes to become equal in a finite population and the probability that the population of inversion chromosomes remains monomorphic for the allele which existed in the initial inversion introduced are studied. Considering all these quantities, it is concluded that data on the non-random association between electromorphs and inversions are not very informative for the study of the maintenance of protein polymorphism. It is also indicated that in the study of association between electromorphs and inversion chromosomes non-random association or Yule's coefficient of association has a better property than the usual linkage disequilibrium measure or correlation coefficient. Implications of this study on some experimental observations are discussed.