ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2017
On the origin of biological construction, with a focus on multicellularity.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 39 papers.
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Who cites it
39 citing papers in PubMed.
- Review
- The limits of information in precise regulation of early multicellular life cycles.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Lives in a gram of soil: linking life cycle biology to soil ecology.The ISME journal · 2026Review
- The key role of cheaters in the persistence of cooperation.BMC biology · 2026Article
- A New Classification Framework to Understand Evolutionary Transitions in Individuality.BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology · 2026Review
- Cooperative hydrodynamics accompany multicellular-like colonial organization in the unicellular ciliateNature physics · 2025Article
- Individuality Through Ecology: Rethinking the Evolution of Complex Life From an Externalist Perspective.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- The key role of cheaters in the persistence of cooperation.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Fundamental constraints to the logic of living systems.Interface focus · 2024Review
- Stability of ecologically scaffolded traits during evolutionary transitions in individuality.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Physical constraints during Snowball Earth drive the evolution of multicellularity.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Chapter 5: Major Biological Innovations in the History of Life on Earth.Astrobiology · 2024Article
- Characteristic processes of human evolution caused the Anthropocene and may obstruct its global solutions.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Review
- Article
- Single-cell adaptations shape evolutionary transitions to multicellularity in green algae.Nature ecology & evolution · 2023Article
- Alternating selection for dispersal and multicellularity favors regulated life cycles.Current biology : CB · 2023Article
- Minor variations in multicellular life cycles have major effects on adaptation.PLoS computational biology · 2023Article
- Major evolutionary transitions in individuality between humans and AI.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Review
- Low frequency electrical waves in ensembles of proteinoid microspheres.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Modelling the evolution of novelty: a review.Essays in biochemistry · 2022Article
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2 authors.
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Abstract
Biology is marked by a hierarchical organization: all life consists of cells; in some cases, these cells assemble into groups, such as endosymbionts or multicellular organisms; in turn, multicellular organisms sometimes assemble into yet other groups, such as primate societies or ant colonies. The construction of new organizational layers results from hierarchical evolutionary transitions, in which biological units (e.g., cells) form groups that evolve into new units of biological organization (e.g., multicellular organisms). Despite considerable advances, there is no bottom-up, dynamical account of how, starting from the solitary ancestor, the first groups originate and subsequently evolve the organizing principles that qualify them as new units. Guided by six central questions, we propose an integrative bottom-up approach for studying the dynamics underlying hierarchical evolutionary transitions, which builds on and synthesizes existing knowledge. This approach highlights the crucial role of the ecology and development of the solitary ancestor in the emergence and subsequent evolution of groups, and it stresses the paramount importance of the life cycle: only by evaluating groups in the context of their life cycle can we unravel the evolutionary trajectory of hierarchical transitions. These insights also provide a starting point for understanding the types of subsequent organizational complexity. The central research questions outlined here naturally link existing research programs on biological construction (e.g., on cooperation, multilevel selection, self-organization, and development) and thereby help integrate knowledge stemming from diverse fields of biology.
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