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Multicellularity drives ecological diversity in a long-term evolution experiment

Nature Ecology & Evolution (2024)Cite this article

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Long-term experimental evolution in brewer’s yeast reveals how the transition to simple multicellularity can drive ecological divergence and maintain diversity.

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Fig. 1: Emergence and long-term coexistence of large and small clusters of snowflake yeast.

References

  1. Bonner, J.T. The Evolution of Complexity by Means of Natural Selection (Princeton Univ. Press, 1988). This book explores the evolution of complex life, with a focus on the role of organismal size.

  2. Bonner, J. T. Why Size Matters: From Bacteria to Blue Whales (Princeton Univ. Press, 2007). This book focuses explicitly on the role of size in ecology and evolution.

  3. Ratcliff, W. C. et al. Experimental evolution of multicellularity. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 109, 1595–1600 (2012). This paper reports the de novo evolution of snowflake yeast from unicellular relatives in response to selection for larger size.

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This is a summary of: Pineau, R. M. et al. Emergence and maintenance of stable coexistence during a long-term multicellular evolution experiment. Nat. Ecol. Evol. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02367-y (2024).

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Multicellularity drives ecological diversity in a long-term evolution experiment. Nat Ecol Evol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02391-y

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