Onset and stepwise extensions of recombination suppression are common in mating‐type chromosomes of Microbotryum anther‐smut fungi

Sex chromosomes and mating‐type chromosomes can display large genomic regions without recombination. Recombination suppression often extended stepwise with time away from the sex‐ or mating‐type‐determining genes, generating evolutionary strata of differentiation between alternative sex or mating‐type chromosomes. In anther‐smut fungi of the Microbotryum genus, recombination suppression evolved repeatedly, linking the two mating‐type loci and extended multiple times in regions distal to the mating‐type genes. Here, we obtained high‐quality genome assemblies of alternative mating types for four Microbotryum fungi. We found an additional event of independent chromosomal rearrangements bringing the two mating‐type loci on the same chromosome followed by recombination suppression linking them. We also found, in a new clade analysed here, that recombination suppression between the two mating‐type loci occurred in several steps, with first an ancestral recombination suppression between one of the mating‐type locus and its centromere; later, completion of recombination suppression up to the second mating‐type locus occurred independently in three species. The estimated dates of recombination suppression between the mating‐type loci ranged from 0.15 to 3.58 million years ago. In total, this makes at least nine independent events of linkage between the mating‐type loci across the Microbotryum genus. Several mating‐type locus linkage events occurred through the same types of chromosomal rearrangements, where similar chromosome fissions at centromeres represent convergence in the genomic changes leading to the phenotypic convergence. These findings further highlight Microbotryum fungi as excellent models to study the evolution of recombination suppression.