 Burns et al.studied the expression of genes involved in the 15-hour meiotic process, and found that the pattern of gene expression of "C. cinerea" was similar to two other fungal species, the yeasts "Saccharomyces cerevisiae" and "Schizosaccharomyces pombe".These similarities in the patterns of expression led to the conclusion that the core expression program of meiosis has been conserved in these fungi for over half a billion years of evolution since these species diverged.