Related papers: Exploring Evolved Multicellular Life Histories in …
Continuing generation of novelty, complexity, and adaptation are well-established as core aspects of open-ended evolution. However, it has yet to be firmly established to what extent these phenomena are coupled and by what means they…
As cells grow and divide under a given environment, they become crowded and resources are limited, as seen in bacterial biofilms and multicellular aggregates. These cells often show strong interactions through exchanging chemicals, as in…
Families form the basis of society, and anthropologists have characterised various family systems. This study developed a multi-level evolutionary model of pre-industrial agricultural societies to simulate the evolution of family systems…
The evolution of multicellularity was a major transition in the history of life on earth. Conditions under which multicellularity is favored have been studied theoretically and experimentally. But since the construction of a multicellular…
This paper develops a quasispecies model where cells can adopt a two-cell survival strategy. Within this strategy, pairs of cells join together, at which point one of the cells sacrifices its own replicative ability for the sake of the…
All life, including cells and artificial protocells, must integrate diverse molecules into a single unit in order to reproduce. Despite expected pressure to evolve a simple system with the fastest replication speed, the mechanism by which…
Understanding the emergence and evolution of multicellularity and cellular differentiation is a core problem in biology. We develop a quantitative model that shows that a multicellular form emerges from genetically identical unicellular…
Most conspicuous organisms are multicellular and most multicellular organisms develop somatic cells to perform specific, non-reproductive tasks. The ubiquity of this division of labor suggests that it is highly advantageous. In this paper,…
Biological information processing manifests a huge variety in its complexity and capability among different organisms, which presumably stems from the evolutionary optimization under limited computational resources. Starting from the…
In the protein sequence space, natural proteins form clusters of families which are characterized by their unique native folds whereas the great majority of random polypeptides are neither clustered nor foldable to unique structures. Since…
The rise of multicellularity in the early evolution of life represents a major challenge for evolutionary biology. Guidance for finding answers has emerged from disparate fields, from phylogenetics to modelling and synthetic biology, but…
Systems composed of distinct complex networks are present in many real-world environments, from society to ecological systems. In the present paper, we propose a network model obtained as a consequence of interactions between two species…
A central and long-standing issue in evolutionary theory is the origin of the biological variation upon which natural selection acts1. Some hypotheses suggest that evolutionary change represents an adaptation to the surrounding environment…
Character evolution that affects ecological community interactions often occurs contemporaneously with temporal changes in population size, potentially altering the very nature of those dynamics. Such eco-evolutionary processes may be most…
Evolutionary dynamics is often viewed as a subtle process of change accumulation that causes a divergence among organisms and their genomes. However, this interpretation is an inheritance of a gradualistic view that has been challenged at…
Top-down causation has been suggested to occur at all scales of biological organization as a mechanism for explaining the hierarchy of structure and causation in living systems. Here we propose that a transition from bottom-up to top-down…
Investigating the emergence of a particular cell type is a recurring theme in models of growing cellular populations. The evolution of resistance to therapy is a classic example. Common questions are: when does the cell type first occur,…
In Evolutionary Dynamics the understanding of cooperative phenomena in natural and social systems has been the subject of intense research during decades. We focus attention here on the so-called "Lattice Reciprocity" mechanisms that…
Intercellular exchange networks are essential for the adaptive capabilities of populations of cells. While diffusional exchanges have traditionally been difficult to map, recent advances in nanotechnology enable precise probing of exchange…
The living-together of distinct organisms in a single termite nest along with the termite builder colony, is emblematic in its ecological and evolutionary significance. On top of preserving biodiversity, these interspecific and…