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Evolution of multicellular life cycles under costly fragmentation

A fascinating wealth of life cycles is observed in biology, from unicellularity to the concerted fragmentation of multicellular units. However, the understanding of factors driving their evolution is still limited. We show that costs of fragmentation have a major impact on the evolution of life cycl...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Pichugin, Yuriy, Traulsen, Arne
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7714367/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33211685
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008406
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author Pichugin, Yuriy
Traulsen, Arne
author_facet Pichugin, Yuriy
Traulsen, Arne
author_sort Pichugin, Yuriy
collection PubMed
description A fascinating wealth of life cycles is observed in biology, from unicellularity to the concerted fragmentation of multicellular units. However, the understanding of factors driving their evolution is still limited. We show that costs of fragmentation have a major impact on the evolution of life cycles due to their influence on the growth rates of the associated populations. We model a group structured population of undifferentiated cells, where cell clusters reproduce by fragmentation. Fragmentation events are associated with a cost expressed by either a fragmentation delay, an additional risk, or a cell loss. The introduction of such fragmentation costs vastly increases the set of possible life cycles. Based on these findings, we suggest that the evolution of life cycles involving splitting into multiple offspring can be directly associated with the fragmentation cost. Moreover, the impact of this cost alone is strong enough to drive the emergence of multicellular units that eventually split into many single cells, even under scenarios that strongly disfavour collectives compared to solitary individuals.
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spelling pubmed-77143672020-12-09 Evolution of multicellular life cycles under costly fragmentation Pichugin, Yuriy Traulsen, Arne PLoS Comput Biol Research Article A fascinating wealth of life cycles is observed in biology, from unicellularity to the concerted fragmentation of multicellular units. However, the understanding of factors driving their evolution is still limited. We show that costs of fragmentation have a major impact on the evolution of life cycles due to their influence on the growth rates of the associated populations. We model a group structured population of undifferentiated cells, where cell clusters reproduce by fragmentation. Fragmentation events are associated with a cost expressed by either a fragmentation delay, an additional risk, or a cell loss. The introduction of such fragmentation costs vastly increases the set of possible life cycles. Based on these findings, we suggest that the evolution of life cycles involving splitting into multiple offspring can be directly associated with the fragmentation cost. Moreover, the impact of this cost alone is strong enough to drive the emergence of multicellular units that eventually split into many single cells, even under scenarios that strongly disfavour collectives compared to solitary individuals. Public Library of Science 2020-11-19 /pmc/articles/PMC7714367/ /pubmed/33211685 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008406 Text en © 2020 Pichugin, Traulsen http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Pichugin, Yuriy
Traulsen, Arne
Evolution of multicellular life cycles under costly fragmentation
title Evolution of multicellular life cycles under costly fragmentation
title_full Evolution of multicellular life cycles under costly fragmentation
title_fullStr Evolution of multicellular life cycles under costly fragmentation
title_full_unstemmed Evolution of multicellular life cycles under costly fragmentation
title_short Evolution of multicellular life cycles under costly fragmentation
title_sort evolution of multicellular life cycles under costly fragmentation
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7714367/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33211685
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008406
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