In Neurospora, one mitosis occurs after meiosis, and therefore, the sequence of ascospores will be

In the eight-spored N. crassa, the linearly ordered ascospore pairs reflect the underlying genetic events during meiosis, and provide the clearest visual demonstration that crossing over occurs at the four-strand stage during meiotic prophase. When a gene marker is close to the centromere (no crossing over between the gene and centromere), the two alleles are likely to segregate from one another at the first division of meiosis and result in a 4:4 ascospore pattern for the segregating alleles. In contrast, when a gene marker is far from the centromere (cross over likely) the two alleles often segregate at the second division of meiosis show a 2:2:2:2 or 2:4:2 ascosporepattern for the segregating alleles.