Selection for synchronized cell division in simple multicellular organisms

TL;DR

This paper investigates how natural selection influences whether simple multicellular organisms evolve to have synchronized or asynchronous cell divisions, revealing that these phenotypes are subject to different selective pressures.

Contribution

It introduces a population model comparing synchronous and asynchronous cell divisions, providing insights into their evolutionary dynamics and non-neutrality.

Findings

Natural selection can favor either synchronous or asynchronous cell division.

Synchronous and asynchronous divisions are generally not neutral variants.

The model offers intuition on the evolutionary stability of division timing.

Abstract

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 organism requires multiple rounds of cell division, a natural question is whether these cell divisions should be synchronous or not. We study a simple population model in which there compete simple multicellular organisms that grow either by synchronous or asynchronous cell divisions. We demonstrate that natural selection can act differently on synchronous and asynchronous cell division, and we offer intuition for why these phenotypes are generally not neutral variants of each other.