Relationships between mating type genes and mating-inducing factors (gamones) were investigated in the ciliate Euplotes patella syngen 2. Ten mating types were distinguished, and genetic data indicated that the ten mating types were determined by four codominant alleles in possible combinations of two of them. There were six heterozygous types (mt1/mt2, mt3/mt4, etc.) and four homozygous types (mt1/mt1, mt2/mt2, etc.). Conjugation-conditioned fluid (CCF) obtained from a mixture of cells of homozygous types could induce homotypic pair formation in cells of all mating types except for a particular type. Genetic data of cell-CCF combination experiments suggest that each mating type allele controls the production of a specific gamone which induces pair formation in cells which do not produce the same gamone. Gamones and their hypothetical receptors are discussed.

Two laboratory strains of the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii137c differ in their pattern of phototactic aggregation. One is positively phototactic under conditions where the other is negatively phototactic. The trait segregates 2:2 in tetrads and maps to a single locus. Heterozygous diploids are positively phototactic, showing that this allele is dominant. The aggregation pattern caused by either allele is not altered by the introduction of an unlinked gene that suppresses development of the eyespot. Probably the strains already differed in phototactic behaviour at the time they were first isolated. They may therefore reflect a genetic polymorphism common among soil algae. The genetic data allowed another significant observation not specifically related to phototaxis. Anomalous products from some crosses suggest that four nuclei sometimes fuse into a tetraploid zygote that then undergoes meiosis. The meiotic products that result are diploid. This represents a previously undescribed mechanism of diploid formation in Chlamydomonas.

Variability in fertility in compound chromosome (CC) strains of Lucilia cuprina (Wiedemann) is directly correlated with the segregation properties of the CCs in those strains. In compound fifth-chromosomes, high fertility (up to 50% ) is associated with high frequencies of segregation of the left element (C(5L)) from the right element (C(5R)) in males, while low fertility (up to 25%) is associated with random assortment of the CCs in males. Regular segregation of C(5L) and C(5R) chromosomes in males is associated with particular C(5L) elements, which contain cytologically visible duplications of 5R chromatin. These duplications may contain a site which is normally involved in the pairing of the fifth chromosomes in males.

In females the CCs segregate from one another with a frequency of 89%. None of the C(5R) elements studied affected segregation in males, and neither C(5L) nor C(5R) elements had any demonstrable effect on segregation in females. Transmission of certain CC elements through one or both sexes is significantly lower than expected. This could have a variety of causes, such as meiotic drive, inviability associated with position effects, or homozygosis of deleterious mutations on homologous CC arms during meiotic crossing over in females. The CC strains released during a field trial of genetic control contained both high-fertility and low-fertility C(5L) chromosomes. Both types of CC were subsequently recovered from individuals which had overwintered in the field. Over a period of several generations following this recolonization one particular high-fertility C(5L) chromosome increased in frequency to near-fixation, despite the presence in this chromosome of deleterious mutations.

Drosophila melanogaster, D. simulans and D. mauritiana are closely related species, the first two cosmopolitan and the last restricted to the oceanic island of Mauritius. D. simulans and D. mauritiana are the most closely related pair, with the latter species probably resulting from a founder event. The relatedness of the three species and their ability to hybridize allow tests of recent theories of speciation. Genetic analysis of two characters differing between D. simulans and D. mauritiana (sex comb tooth number and testis colour) show that the differences are due to at least five and three loci respectively. Behavioural tests further demonstrate that sex combs are probably used by males at a crucial step in mating, and that the differences between the two species may be related to differences in their mating ability. These genetic studies and previous work indicate that differences among these species are polygenic and not (as proposed by recent theories) attributable to only one or two loci of large effect. Further studies of interspecific hybrids show that genetic divergence leading to developmental anomalies is more advanced in the older species pair D. simulans/D. melanogaeter than in the younger pair D. simulans/D. mauritiana. This supports the neo-Darwinian contention that reproductive isolation is one step in a continuous process of genetic change among isolated populations, and does not support current theories that such change occurs only during the evolution of reproductive isolation. Finally, investigations of the degree of gonadal atrophy and its sensitivity to temperature in D. simulans/D. mauritiana hybrids fail to support recent speculations that phenomena similar to hybrid dysgenesis (which causes such atrophy in D. melanogaster) play a role in speciation.

Aggregation chimaeras were constructed by fusing embryos homozygous for sash (Wsh) with fuzzy, leaden beige (fz, ln, bg) homozygotes to investigate the site of action of the beige and leaden loci. The genotype of the hair follicle was identified by fuzzy alleles (+ +fz or fzfz). All melanocytes were derived from the fuzzy leaden beige population, as sash homozygotes do not produce functional melanocytes. Reciprocal recombinant epidermal/ /dermal skin grafts were constructed from 14-day embryonic skin of homozygous fzln bg and either albino (aa cc) or pink-eyed dilution (pp) embryos to test for any dermal expression of leaden or beige, since the epidermal and dermal genotype of the chimaeric hair follicles could differ.

Patches of fuzzy and non-fuzzy hairs were distributed throughout the coats of two of the three chimaeras obtained. The pigmented regions were blue grey, typical of the leaden beige interactive phenotype. Large abnormal beige granules were found in fuzzy and non-fuzzy hairs. Melanocytes in both classes of growing follicles were nucleopetal, typical of leaden. Similarly, the results of the 14-day skin grafts showed that the beige and leaden loci are melanocyte-autonomous.

The chimaeras showed a pigment distribution resembling the heterozygous sash phenotype. Thus the 1:1 gene dosage of sash: wild type in heterozygotes and chimaeras has an overall effect on pigment pattern that overrides the predicted random distribution of the melanocyte precursors.

Unstable alleles, broken chromosomes and stable mutants have arisen in maize out of infected plants of Barley Striped Mosaic Virus and other viruses. Surprisingly, these same events have appeared out of progenies of these infected plants that themselves do not show any infection. These mutants showing instability have resulted from insertions that are not necessarily related. Two of these insertions (BS1 and TZ86) that have been analysed molecularly have the general characteristics of maize insertions with terminal inverted repeats and host duplication at the terminus of the transposon. In other experiments three of the unstable alleles at the a locus in maize (A locus, chromosome 3, short arm; one of genes for anthocyanin control) that arose in derivative lines of the initially treated plants are responsive to a transposable element, the Uq element. It was determined that the Uq element was not present in this initially treated plant but was present in the untreated female plant. It is proposed that the initial treatment induced events that in turn led to the mobilization of elements and that these events continue to occur in later generations. It seems that genomic events once initiated such as mobility of elements cannot be terminated despite a discontinuation of the treatment (virus) and, like a Frankenstein monster, is not responsive to its maker.

Three transposable element mutations, displaying an unstable pheno-type at the A locus, were isolated from lines exhibiting Aberrant Ratio behaviour that originated from maize plants treated with plant RNA viruses. Each of these three unstable mutants is shown to belong to the Uq-ruq transposable element system. The two new mutants, along with the previously described a-ruq mutant, are nonautonomous in mutability control in that the control of mutability is governed by the segregating Uq regulatory element. By following the distribution of different Uq elements segregating in independently derived genetic lines and utilizing tests of allelism and linkage, certain lineages of Uq-element-containing lines are revealed.