Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Nature Communications
Publication Date
11-6-2013
Volume
4
Disciplines
Biology | Life Sciences
Abstract
The transition to multicellularity enabled the evolution of large, complex organisms, but early steps in this transition remain poorly understood. Here we show that multicellular complexity, including development from a single cell, can evolve rapidly in a unicellular organism that has never had a multicellular ancestor. We subject the alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii to conditions that favour multicellularity, resulting in the evolution of a multicellular life cycle in which clusters reproduce via motile unicellular propagules. While a single-cell genetic bottleneck during ontogeny is widely regarded as an adaptation to limit among-cell conflict, its appearance very early in this transition suggests that it did not evolve for this purpose. Instead, we find that unicellular propagules are adaptive even in the absence of intercellular conflict, maximizing cluster-level fecundity. These results demonstrate that the unicellular bottleneck, a trait essential for evolving multicellular complexity, can arise rapidly via co-option of the ancestral unicellular form. © 2013 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms3742
Rights
© 2013 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Supplemental information (video)
Recommended Citation
Ratcliff, William C.; Herron, Matthew D.; Howell, Kathryn; Pentz, Jennifer T.; Rosenzweig, Frank; and Travisano, Michael, "Experimental evolution of an alternating uni- and multicellular life cycle in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii" (2013). Biological Sciences Faculty Publications. 438.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/biosci_pubs/438