Scientists have examined the role of simple, higher-level life cycles in evolutionary transitions in individuality (ETIs). ETIs refer to events that occur when individual, autonomous organisms evolve to become part of a new, ‘higher-level’ organism. An example is the transition from single-cell organisms to multicellular organisms. A key step in this process is when lower-level organisms lose their capacity to undergo Darwinian evolution and, instead, the higher-level organism gains evolvability. The study could provide insight into the processes behind the emergence of complex life on Earth.

The study, “Nascent life cycles and the emergence of higher-level individuality,” was published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. The work was supported by NASA Astrobiology through the Exobiology & Evolutionary Biology Program. The paper was one contribution to a themed issue, “Process and pattern in innovations from cells to societies.”