Experimental evolution of an alternating uni- and multicellular life cycle in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

• DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3742
• Publication Date: 2013-11-06T11:01:07Z
• Authors: William C. Ratcliff; Matthew D. Herron; Kathryn Howell; Jennifer T. Pentz; Frank Rosenzweig; Michael Travisano
• Keywords: Multicellular organism; Chlamydomonas reinhardtii; Chlamydomonas; Propagule

The transition to multicellularity enabled the evolution of large, complex organisms, but early steps in this remain poorly understood. Here we show that multicellular complexity, including development from a single cell, can evolve rapidly unicellular organism has never had ancestor. We subject alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii conditions favour multicellularity, resulting life cycle which clusters reproduce via motile propagules. While single-cell genetic bottleneck during ontogeny is widely regarded as an adaptation limit among-cell conflict, its appearance very suggests it did not for purpose. Instead, find propagules are adaptive even absence intercellular maximizing cluster-level fecundity. These results demonstrate bottleneck, trait essential evolving arise co-option ancestral form.