Summary
Some hypotheses are proposed for the origin of gamete lethals and 5-alleles in complex heterozygotes with zygotic lethality. It is shown that egg or pollen detrimentals or lethals are nearly neutral in highly selfing populations, so that a translocation complex which fails to be transmitted through gametes of one sex may be selected if it confers a slight advantage to the sporophyte. Once an asymmetry in transmission of this sort has been established, there is a selective advantage to mutations causing asymmetry in the opposite sense, either by gamete lethality or because of incompatibility (in cases when egg lethality has been established first).
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Charlesworth, B. Selection for gamete lethals and S-alleles in complex heterozygotes. Heredity 43, 159–164 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1038/hdy.1979.71
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/hdy.1979.71
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