Experimental characteristics and best-fit simulation parameters.

#The genomic chromosome length and SC length are from the following sources.
(1) S.cerevisiae: Saccharomyces Genomic Database (http://www.yeastgenome.org) and SC length are from this study and [31]. (2) Chorthippus: its C value = ∼10 pg (http://www.genomesize.com/results.php?page=1), and 1 pg = 978 Mb [70]; thus its genome size is ∼9780 Mb, chromosome L3 SC = 94 µm (0.189 of total SC length [71]), thus the predicted L3 is ∼1800 Mb assuming the SC length is proportional to genome size in this organism. (3) D. Melanogaster: Fly Database (http://flybase.org/). SC length is based on [72], [73]. (4) S. lycopersicum: Sol Genomics Network (http://solgenomics.net). SC length is from [38].
@The number of precursors is based on the following. (1) S. cerevisiae: Spo11 oligos and also microarray data [21], [52]. (2) Chorthippus: from [3] (3) D. Melanogaster: based on [3], [34], [35] (4) S. lycopersicum: based on [38].