4.5 Article

Ecological scaffolding and the evolution of individuality

Journal

NATURE ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION
Volume 4, Issue 3, Pages 426-+

Publisher

NATURE PORTFOLIO
DOI: 10.1038/s41559-019-1086-9

Keywords

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Funding

  1. Australian Research Council (ARC) DECRA fellowship [DE160100690]
  2. ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers (CoE ACEMS)
  3. Australian Government NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in Policy Relevant Infectious diseases Simulation and Mathematical Modelling (CRE PRISM2)
  4. Macquarie University
  5. John Templeton Foundation [ID 60811]
  6. MPG
  7. Marsden Fund Council from New Zealand Government
  8. Australian Research Council [DE160100690] Funding Source: Australian Research Council

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Mathematical models are used to explore how individual cells can transition towards multicellular groups that are subject to Darwinian processes. Evolutionary transitions in individuality are central to the emergence of biological complexity. Recent experiments provide glimpses of processes underpinning the transition from single cells to multicellular life and draw attention to the critical role of ecology. Here, we emphasize this ecological dimension and argue that its current absence from theoretical frameworks hampers development of general explanatory solutions. Using mechanistic mathematical models, we show how a minimal ecological structure comprising patchily distributed resources and between-patch dispersal can scaffold Darwinian-like properties on collectives of cells. This scaffolding causes cells to participate directly in the process of evolution by natural selection as if they were members of multicellular collectives, with collectives participating in a death-birth process arising from the interplay between the timing of dispersal events and the rate of resource use by cells. When this timescale is sufficiently long and new collectives are founded by single cells, collectives experience conditions that favour evolution of a reproductive division of labour. Together our simple model makes explicit key events in the major evolutionary transition to multicellularity. It also makes predictions concerning the life history of certain pathogens and serves as an ecological recipe for experimental realization of evolutionary transitions.

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