Fig. 4: Fungi constrain genetic variability by self-organized resetting.
a Multi-nucleated fungi undergo cycles of sporulation and anastomosis, as the hyphae of different fungi fuse and allow the exchange of nuclei. Fungi spores carry only a subset of nuclei and sporulation acts effectively as a fission event. Iterative fusion and fission implement pair-wise cooperative resetting. b Stochastic simulations of fungal populations demonstrate hyphal fusion to preserve genetic heterogeneity of neutral genes by self-organized resetting. Genetic heterogeneity is quantified in a population snapshot after 25 generations. Different colors represent different probabilities for fungi to undergo anastomosis with a different fungus after sporulation and subsequent germination. The spore size is Ns = 20. c Simulations show an increased probability for fixation of neutral mutations in the absence of anastomosis (dotted lines). Fungi undergo anastomosis with a probability of 25% after germination (bold lines). Different colors indicate different effective spore sizes in terms of the number of enclosed nuclei.
