Data from: Genetic background alters dominance relationships between mat alleles in the ciliate Tetrahymena thermophila

The pattern of inheritance and mechanism of sex determination can have important evolutionary consequences. We studied probabilistic sex determination in the ciliate Tetrahymena thermophila, which was previously shown to cause evolution of skewed sex ratios. We find that the genetic background alters the sex determination patterns of mat alleles in heterozygotes and that allelic interaction can differentially influence the expression probability of the 7 sexes. We quantify the dominance relationships between several mat alleles and find that A-type alleles, which specify sex I, are indeed recessive to B-type alleles, which are unable to specify that sex. Our results provide additional support for the presence of modifier loci and raise implications for the dynamics of sex ratios in populations of T. thermophila.Dryad_SDPcountDataThe table contains the number of progeny with a particular genotype (either homozygote or heterozygote) that showed the respective sex (leftmost column). These counts were used to calculate SDPs (relative frequencies of sexes) shown in Table 2.JOHDominanceEstimate.nbThis is a mathematica notebook used to estimate the dominance relationship between mat alleles. The files takes as inputs sex determination patterns (SDPS) of the alleles and total number of progeny used to determine SDP. The equation used for estimate dominance and its confidence intervals are described in the methods section of the article. The raw data are provided in an accompanying excel sheet and the SDPs in Table 2 in the published article. The dominance estimates are also provided in the published article