Merlijn Staps

Abstract The evolution of multicellularity required nascent multicellular life to persist in a unicellular world. Because grouping usually comes with steep costs, multicellularity had to confer some benefits. While direct benefits—in which cells in groups outperform single cells under the same conditions—can clearly suffice for multicellularity to evolve, whether they were also necessary has not been systematically explored.

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Abstract The evolution of multicellularity has given rise to a remarkable diversity of multicellular life cycles and life histories. Whereas some multicellular organisms are long-lived, grow through cell division, and repeatedly release single-celled propagules (for example, animals), others are short-lived, form by aggregation, and propagate only once, by generating large numbers of solitary cells (for example, cellular slime moulds).