Evolution of multicellular life cycles under costly fragmentation
Fig 5
Multicellular units can evolve in detrimental environments.
Each panel presents the fraction of the minimal, binary life cycle 1+1 (green) and equal split life cycles with a larger maturity size (orange) for random detrimental environments, where division rates decrease and death rates increase with cluster size. Panel (A) shows fragmentation with delay, (B)—fragmentation with risk, and (C)—fragmentation with cell loss. The increase in fragmentation costs, drives the evolution of life cycles involving formation of multicellular units. All evolutionarily optimal life cycles found have the form 1+ … + 1.