ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2003
An evolutionary scenario for the transition to undifferentiated multicellularity.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2003. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 55 papers.
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Who cites it
55 citing papers in PubMed.
- The systemic evolutionary theory of the origin of cancer (SETOC): an update.Molecular medicine (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Stability of ecologically scaffolded traits during evolutionary transitions in individuality.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Article
- Permissive aggregative group formation favors coexistence between cooperators and defectors in yeast.The ISME journal · 2022Article
- Multilevel selection favors fragmentation modes that maintain cooperative interactions in multispecies communities.PLoS computational biology · 2021Article
- Article
- Endosymbiosis before eukaryotes: mitochondrial establishment in protoeukaryotes.Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS · 2020Review
- Molecular Mechanisms Involved in the Multicellular Growth of Ustilaginomycetes.Microorganisms · 2020Review
- Multicellular growth of the Basidiomycota phytopathogen fungus Sporisorium reilianum induced by acid conditions.Folia microbiologica · 2020Article
- Metabolically cohesive microbial consortia and ecosystem functioning.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Ecological scaffolding and the evolution of individuality.Nature ecology & evolution · 2020Article
- Cellular heterogeneity results from indirect effects under metabolic tradeoffs.Royal Society open science · 2019Article
- Understanding Multicellularity: The Functional Organization of the Intercellular Space.Frontiers in physiology · 2019Article
- Selection for synchronized cell division in simple multicellular organisms.Journal of theoretical biology · 2018Article
- Cellular packing, mechanical stress and the evolution of multicellularity.Nature physics · 2018Article
- Initial evenness determines diversity and cell density dynamics in synthetic microbial ecosystems.Scientific reports · 2018Article
- Evolutionary stability in continuous nonlinear public goods games.Journal of mathematical biology · 2017Article
- Competing metabolic strategies in a multilevel selection model.Royal Society open science · 2016Article
- Stabilizing multicellularity through ratcheting.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2016Article
- Synthetic transitions: towards a new synthesis.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2016Review
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2 authors.
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Abstract
The evolutionary transition from single cells toward multicellular forms of life represents one of the major transitions in the evolution of complex organisms. In this transition, single autonomously reproducing cells became parts of larger reproducing entities that eventually constituted a new unit of selection. The first step in the evolutionary transition to multicellularity likely was the evolution of simple, undifferentiated cell clusters. However, what the selective advantage of such cell clusters may have been remains unclear. Here, we argue that in populations of unicellular organisms with cooperative behavior, clustering may be beneficial by reducing interactions with noncooperative individuals. In support of this hypothesis, we present a set of computer simulations showing that clustering can evolve as a biological, heritable trait for cells that cooperate in the use of external energy resources. Following the evolution of simple cell clusters, further benefits could have arisen from the exchange of resources between cells of a cluster.
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