Bonforti, A.; Sole, R. Unicellular-Multicellular Evolutionary Branching Driven by Resource Limitations. Preprints2021, 2021120459. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202112.0459.v1
APA Style
Bonforti, A., & Sole, R. (2021). Unicellular-Multicellular Evolutionary Branching Driven by Resource Limitations. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202112.0459.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Bonforti, A. and Ricard Sole. 2021 "Unicellular-Multicellular Evolutionary Branching Driven by Resource Limitations" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202112.0459.v1
Abstract
Multicellular life forms have evolved many times in our planet, suggesting that this is a common evolutionary innovation. Multiple advantages have been proposed for multicellularity (MC) to emerge. In this paper we address the problem of how the first precondition for multicellularity, namely "stay together" might have occurred under spatially limited resources exploited by a population of unicellular agents. Using a minimal model of evolved cell-cell adhesion among growing and dividing cells that exploit a localised resource with a given size, we show that a transition occurs at a critical resource size separating a phase of evolved multicellular aggregates from a phase where unicellularity (UC) is favoured. The two phases are separated by an intermediate domain where where both UC and MC can be selected by evolution. This model provides a minimal approach to the early stages that were required to transition from Darwinian individuality to cohesive groups of cells associated with a physical cooperative effect: when resources are present only in a localised portion of the habitat, MC is a desirable property as it helps cells to keep close to the available local nutrients.
Biology and Life Sciences, Biology and Biotechnology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
