Evolution of Multicellularity
My research on the evolution of multicellularity uses mathematical and computational models to investigate how new levels of biological individuality can emerge. This work is part of a broader effort to understand major evolutionary transitions, especially the transition from independent cells to higher-level collectives that can themselves evolve as Darwinian individuals.
A central theme of this work is ecological scaffolding. Rather than assuming that multicellular individuality begins entirely from properties internal to cells, ecological scaffolding asks how environmental structure can temporarily impose higher-level properties on groups. Patchy resources, repeated dispersal, and restrictive bottlenecks can make collections of cells discrete, reproductive, and heritable enough for selection to act at the collective level.
In my modelling work, I investigate how the size of the bottleneck during dispersal affects evolution in these nested Darwinian populations. Small bottlenecks strengthen the hereditary link between parent and offspring collectives, while larger bottlenecks can increase within-patch competition and alter the direction or speed of evolutionary change. This helps clarify why bottlenecks are important in the emergence and maintenance of multicellular individuality.
More broadly, this research explores how ecology, stochasticity, and population structure can shape the origin of complex life. The goal is to understand not only how cells cooperate, but how ecological conditions can create the initial conditions under which a group of cells becomes a new evolutionary individual.