Adaptation, chance, and history in experimental evolution reversals to unicellularity.

ABSTRACT: Evolution is often deemed irreversible. The evolution of complex traits that require many mutations makes their reversal unlikely. Even in simpler traits, reversals might become less likely as neutral or beneficial mutations, with deleterious effects in the ancestral context, become fixed in the novel background. This is especially true in changes that involve large reorganizations of the organism and its interactions with the environment. The evolution of multicellularity involves the reorganization of previously autonomous cells into a more complex organism; despite the complexity of this change, single cells have repeatedly evolved from multicellular ancestors. These repeated reversals to unicellularity undermine the generality of Dollo's law. In this article, we evaluated the dynamics

SUBMITTER: Rebolleda-Gomez M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6590667 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature