Evolution of reproductive strategies in incipient multicellularity

Gao, Yuanxiao; Pichugin, Yuriy; Gokhale, Chaitanya S.; Traulsen, Arne

doi:10.1101/2021.09.13.460035

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…1A). We choose this class of life cycles because it includes well-studied multicellular life cycles [12, 50, 54, 55] such as binary fission and complete dissociation and it also enables a controlled comparison of life cycles where only a single parameter changes (the number/size of daughter groups). We note that this class of life cycle assumes some mechanism [18] or signal [19] that ensures regularity.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Minor variations in multicellular life cycles have major effects on adaptation

Isaksson

Brännström

Libby

2022

Preprint

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Multicellularity has evolved several independent times over the past hundreds of millions of years and given rise to a wide diversity of complex life. Recent studies have found that large differences in the fundamental structure of early multicellular life cycles can affect fitness and influence multicellular adaptation. Yet, there is an underlying assumption that at some scale or categorization multicellular life cycles are similar in terms of their adaptive potential. Here, we consider this possibility by exploring adaptation in a class of simple multicellular life cycles of filamentous organisms that only differ in one respect, how many daughter filaments are produced. We use mathematical models and evolutionary simulations to show that despite the similarities, qualitatively different mutations fix. In particular, we find that mutations with a tradeoff between cell growth and group survival, i.e. "selfish" or "altruistic" traits, spread differently. Specifically, altruistic mutations more readily spread in life cycles that produce few daughters while in life cycles producing many daughters either type of mutation can spread depending on the environment. Our results show that subtle changes in multicellular life cycles can fundamentally alter adaptation.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Minor variations in multicellular life cycles have major effects on adaptation

Isaksson

Brännström

Libby

2022

Preprint

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“…Data accessibility. Our data are provided in electronic supplementary material [63]. We simulated the model by using Python.…”

Section: Nànmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution of reproductive strategies in incipient multicellularity

Gao

Pichugin

Gokhale

et al. 2022

J. R. Soc. Interface.

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Multicellular organisms potentially show a large degree of diversity in reproductive strategies, producing offspring with varying sizes and compositions compared to their unicellular ancestors. In reality, only a few of these reproductive strategies are prevalent. To understand why this could be the case, we develop a stage-structured population model to probe the evolutionary growth advantages of reproductive strategies in incipient multicellular organisms. The performance of reproductive strategies is evaluated by the growth rates of the corresponding populations. We identify the optimal reproductive strategy, leading to the largest growth rate for a population. Considering the effects of organism size and cellular interaction, we found that distinct reproductive strategies could perform uniquely or equally well under different conditions. If a single reproductive strategy is optimal, it is binary splitting, dividing into two parts. Our results show that organism size and cellular interaction can play crucial roles in shaping reproductive strategies in nascent multicellularity. Our model sheds light on understanding the mechanism driving the evolution of reproductive strategies in incipient multicellularity. Beyond multicellularity, our results imply that a crucial factor in the evolution of unicellular species’ reproductive strategies is organism size.

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Evolution of reproductive strategies in incipient multicellularity

Cited by 2 publications

References 60 publications

Minor variations in multicellular life cycles have major effects on adaptation

Minor variations in multicellular life cycles have major effects on adaptation

Evolution of reproductive strategies in incipient multicellularity

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