That varies a lot. Probably simpler to consider a single celled organism like a bacterium. Bacteria will only multiply by splitting themselves into two copies of themselves. When talking about heredity, most people focus on the DNA. But it pays to remember that each child cell is recieving half of the parent's proteins, RNA, salts, and other essential vitamins etc. So effectively we can think of each child cell as inheriting the parent's cell makeup as well as the DNA.
A quick concrete example in humans is the inheritance of antibodies between mother and child which is transfered via the placenta.
This is all the phys.org press release seems to be saying: heredity is DNA + all the other stuff. As far as I am aware, this is not controversial at all in biology. The actual substance of the two papers is a model for understanding that process, if it's a good model I am sure it would be a good contribution to evolutionary science.
Fair enough, but let's go beyond bacteria. In plants and animals, am I right in thinking that the contribution of these extra-chromosomal components is primarily from the female parent?
If I am not mistaken, there are several evolutionary explanations, such as for a 50-50 sex ratio being a stable equilibrium, and for the benefits of altruism, that assume an organism's fitness comes equally from the male and female parent. If, however, the female parent has significantly more contribution to the offspring's fitness, would that alter the calculus in these cases?
Sharing the contents of a dividing cell is important. But unless both of the two resulting cells can produce more of the initially shared stuff, they are limited to the half-size of the original cell.
Well protein production is regulated by other proteins that are indeed made from instructions encoded in the DNA. But you could imagine that a given cell has produced certain proteins that turn some genes on and others off. This pattern of control can be passed onto both daughter cells. This process is also somewhat stochastic, so not every cell in the population behaves exactly the same, so their daughters wouldn't either.
A quick concrete example in humans is the inheritance of antibodies between mother and child which is transfered via the placenta.
This is all the phys.org press release seems to be saying: heredity is DNA + all the other stuff. As far as I am aware, this is not controversial at all in biology. The actual substance of the two papers is a model for understanding that process, if it's a good model I am sure it would be a good contribution to evolutionary science.