This is another interesting one.
Quote: The hybrid progeny showed novel mutations that were not attributable to either (diploid) parent showing an increase in amino acid changes. In long-term culture, up to 800 generations, there was a variable but gradual erosion of progeny genomes towards triploidy, yet retention of elevated copy number was observed at several core housekeeping loci.
They identified multiple SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) in the offspring, that were not attributable to the parents i.e. they didn’t come from shuffling of the parent’s chromosomes.
However, as l’ve said:
So, what l gather is that while these SNPs led to new amino acids being formed, the net result in the protein being coded for was null change. It is a neutral mutation, and in fact there’s a clue in the name: “Single Nucleotide Polymorphism” i.e. just a variant of the same basic thing. Thankfully the new amino acids being produced would not have changed the proteins being transcribed, and because thankfully, a protein has inbuilt tolerances and the 3D shape of the protein is what matters. It’s like a woman, if her makeup is good most guys consider her legit, no matter if she’s an absolutely evil psycho. It’s the outer form of the protein that does the job.
Bottom line: if there were new improved functionality, the authors would have shouted it out loud.