ArticleeLife2020
Evolution of multicellularity by collective integration of spatial information.
Article in eLife, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed.
- Cell differentiation can underpin the reproducibility of morphogenesis.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Direct benefits are not necessary for the evolution of multicellularity.Nature ecology & evolution · 2026Article
- Extracellular and Membrane Protein: Structure, Biological Functions, Diseases, and an Emerging Modality for Drug Discovery.MedComm · 2026Review
- The limits of information in precise regulation of early multicellular life cycles.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Evolutionary dynamics of nascent multicellular lineages.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- A Morphospace Exploration Using a General Model of Development Reveals a Basic Set of Morphologies for Early Animal Development and Evolution.Journal of experimental zoology. Part B, Molecular and developmental evolution · 2025Article
- A Simple Framework for Agent-Based Modeling with Extracellular Matrix.Bulletin of mathematical biology · 2025Article
- Stability of ecologically scaffolded traits during evolutionary transitions in individuality.Nature communications · 2024Article
- The evolution of multicellularity and cell differentiation symposium: bridging evolutionary cell biology and computational modelling using emerging model systems.Biology open · 2024Review
- Review
- Multicellularity and the Need for Communication-A Systematic Overview on (Algal) Plasmodesmata and Other Types of Symplasmic Cell Connections.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Obligate endosymbiosis enables genome expansion during eukaryogenesis.Communications biology · 2023Article
- Evolution of selfish multicellularity: collective organisation of individual spatio-temporal regulatory strategies.BMC ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Hybrid cellular Potts and bead-spring modeling of cells in fibrous extracellular matrix.Biophysical journal · 2023Article
- Ancient reproductive modes and criteria of multicellularity.Comparative cytogenetics · 2023Review
- Modelling the evolution of novelty: a review.Essays in biochemistry · 2022Article
- When being flexible matters: Ecological underpinnings for the evolution of collective flexibility and task allocation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- What makes tics tick? Insights into Tourette syndrome.Biomedical journal · 2022Article
- Cellular organization in lab-evolved and extant multicellular species obeys a maximum entropy law.eLife · 2022Article
- Evolution of glutamatergic signaling and synapses.Neuropharmacology · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
At the origin of multicellularity, cells may have evolved aggregation in response to predation, for functional specialisation or to allow large-scale integration of environmental cues. These group-level properties emerged from the interactions between cells in a group, and determined the selection pressures experienced by these cells. We investigate the evolution of multicellularity with an evolutionary model where cells search for resources by chemotaxis in a shallow, noisy gradient. Cells can evolve their adhesion to others in a periodically changing environment, where a cell's fitness solely depends on its distance from the gradient source. We show that multicellular aggregates evolve because they perform chemotaxis more efficiently than single cells. Only when the environment changes too frequently, a unicellular state evolves which relies on cell dispersal. Both strategies prevent the invasion of the other through interference competition, creating evolutionary bi-stability. Therefore, collective behaviour can be an emergent selective driver for undifferentiated multicellularity.
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Registered trials
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.