ArticleNature ecology & evolution2024
Emergence and maintenance of stable coexistence during a long-term multicellular evolution experiment.
Article in Nature ecology & evolution, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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7 citing papers in PubMed.
- Cell division timing shapes the morphology and size of nascent multicellular organisms.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Metabolically driven flows enable exponential growth in macroscopic multicellular yeast.Science advances · 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
- Oxygen-binding proteins aid oxygen diffusion to enhance fitness of a yeast model of multicellularity.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Review
- Metabolically-driven flows enable exponential growth in macroscopic multicellular yeast.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Examining the role of oxygen-binding proteins on the early evolution of multicellularity.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
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10 authors.
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Abstract
The evolution of multicellular life spurred evolutionary radiations, fundamentally changing many of Earth's ecosystems. Yet little is known about how early steps in the evolution of multicellularity affect eco-evolutionary dynamics. Through long-term experimental evolution, we observed niche partitioning and the adaptive divergence of two specialized lineages from a single multicellular ancestor. Over 715 daily transfers, snowflake yeast were subjected to selection for rapid growth, followed by selection favouring larger group size. Small and large cluster-forming lineages evolved from a monomorphic ancestor, coexisting for over ~4,300 generations, specializing on divergent aspects of a trade-off between growth rate and survival. Through modelling and experimentation, we demonstrate that coexistence is maintained by a trade-off between organismal size and competitiveness for dissolved oxygen. Taken together, this work shows how the evolution of a new level of biological individuality can rapidly drive adaptive diversification and the expansion of a nascent multicellular niche, one of the most historically impactful emergent properties of this evolutionary transition.
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