Patterns of within population dispersal and mating of the fungus Microbotryum violaceum parasitising the plant Silene latifolia

This study explores the patterns of dispersal and mating of the anther smut Microbotryum violaceum, a model species in genetics and evolutionary biology. A French metapopulation of the fungus collected from its caryophyllaceous host Silene latifolia was analysed using microsatellites. The genetic diversity was low, populations were strongly differentiated, and there was no pattern of isolation by distance among populations. There was a strong deficit in heterozygotes, confirming the high self-fertilisation rates suggested by previous studies. Within populations there was a strong pattern of isolation by distance, with identical genotypes being highly clustered. This indicates that fungal spores are dispersed mostly between adjacent plants, and such local dispersal is important for understanding the dynamics and evolution of this disease. Local clusters of identical heterozygous genotypes did not contain significantly fewer individuals than did clusters of homozygous genotypes. As selfing between products of independent meiotic events (intertetrad selfing) rapidly reduces heterozygosity, this suggests that intratetrad matings are frequent, which helps to explain the puzzling maintenance of a sex-ratio distortion in M. violaceum.