Extended Data Fig. 8: Transcriptome comparisons between Ectocarpus and Fucus reveal expression-level conservation of multicellular stages.

Expression levels of shared orthogroups were compared rather than one-to-one orthologues to mitigate the effect of in-paralogues. A,B, Manhattan distance between A, F. serratus or B, F. distichus against the life cycle stages in female and male Ectocarpus using log-transformed orthogroup abundance. C,D, Similar analysis using Spearman correlation for C, F. serratus or D, F. distichus, to present monotonic relationship. Line colour marks distinct Ectocarpus stages, whose type (i.e., multicellular or unicellular) is denoted by the point shape.