The one ancestor per generation rule and three other rules of mitochondrial inheritance.

Abstract

In mammals, at least, a species-specific mechanism exists that eliminates sperm-derived mitochondrial DNA from a fertilized egg. The result is the "one female ancestor per generation" rule and three other rules of mitochondrial inheritance. The second, third, and fourth rules are as follows. (ii) Sublineages of a given mitochondrial line can be generated only during the parallel descents from ancestral sisters. (iii) In a static population in which the production of one female progeny per mated pair per generation has been a rule, several ancient mitochondrial lineages harking back to the female founders of the speciation may persist side by side. (iv) Two or more individuals not related to each other in the recent past may share the identical or nearly identical mitochondrial genome derived from the common female ancestor or ancestral sisters of many generations ago.