text: Ruderfer et al. analyzed the ancestry of natural S. cerevisiae strains and concluded that matings involving out-crossing occur only about once every 50,000 cell divisions. Thus it appears that, in nature, mating is most often between closely related yeast cells. Mating occurs when haploid cells of opposite mating type MATa and MATα come into contact. Ruderfer et al. pointed out that such contacts are frequent between closely related yeast cells for two reasons. The first is that cells of opposite mating type are present together in the same ascus, the sac that contains the cells directly produced by a single meiosis, and these cells can mate with each other. The second reason is that haploid cells of one mating type, upon cell division, often produce cells of the opposite mating type with which they can mate (see section "Mating type switching", above). The relative rarity in nature of meiotic events that result from out-crossing appears to be inconsistent with the idea that production of genetic variation is the primary selective force maintaining mating capability in this organism. However this finding is consistent with the alternative idea that the primary selective force maintaining mating capability is enhanced recombinational repair of DNA damage during meiosis, since this benefit is realized during each meiosis subsequent to a mating, whether or not out-crossing occurs.