ArticleNature communications2013
Experimental evolution of an alternating uni- and multicellular life cycle in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.
Article in Nature communications, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 80 papers.
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Who cites it
80 citing papers in PubMed.
- Review
- Direct benefits are not necessary for the evolution of multicellularity.Nature ecology & evolution · 2026Article
- Article
- Field strains of the unicellular alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii exhibit multicellular characteristics that shape their interactions.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- Genetic Predisposition Toward Multicellularity in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.Genome biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Evolutionary dynamics of nascent multicellular lineages.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Adaptive evolutionary trajectories in complexity: Transitions between unicellularity and facultative differentiated multicellularity.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Asymmetric genome merging leads to gene expression novelty through nucleo-cytoplasmic disruptions and transcriptomic shock in Chlamydomonas triploids.The New phytologist · 2025Article
- Experimental evolution of multicellularity via cuboidal cell packing in fission yeast.Evolution letters · 2024Article
- Stability of ecologically scaffolded traits during evolutionary transitions in individuality.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Emergence and maintenance of stable coexistence during a long-term multicellular evolution experiment.Nature ecology & evolution · 2024Article
- Evolution and synthetic biology.Current opinion in microbiology · 2023Review
- Multispecies interactions shape the transition to multicellularity.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Multicellularity and the Need for Communication-A Systematic Overview on (Algal) Plasmodesmata and Other Types of Symplasmic Cell Connections.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Article
- Bacteria evolve macroscopic multicellularity by the genetic assimilation of phenotypically plastic cell clustering.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Alternating selection for dispersal and multicellularity favors regulated life cycles.Current biology : CB · 2023Article
- Temperature-Promoted Giant Unilamellar Vesicle (GUV) Aggregation: A Way of Multicellular Formation.Current issues in molecular biology · 2023Article
- The Genetics of Fitness Reorganization during the Transition to Multicellularity: The VolvocineGenes · 2023Review
- Minor variations in multicellular life cycles have major effects on adaptation.PLoS computational biology · 2023Article
20 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The transition to multicellularity enabled the evolution of large, complex organisms, but early steps in this transition remain poorly understood. Here we show that multicellular complexity, including development from a single cell, can evolve rapidly in a unicellular organism that has never had a multicellular ancestor. We subject the alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii to conditions that favour multicellularity, resulting in the evolution of a multicellular life cycle in which clusters reproduce via motile unicellular propagules. While a single-cell genetic bottleneck during ontogeny is widely regarded as an adaptation to limit among-cell conflict, its appearance very early in this transition suggests that it did not evolve for this purpose. Instead, we find that unicellular propagules are adaptive even in the absence of intercellular conflict, maximizing cluster-level fecundity. These results demonstrate that the unicellular bottleneck, a trait essential for evolving multicellular complexity, can arise rapidly via co-option of the ancestral unicellular form.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.