dictyNews
Electronic Edition
Volume 41, number 24
November 6, 2015

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Abstracts
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The Evolution of Evolution: seen through the eyes of a slime mold

John Tyler Bonner


BioScience--to be in December 2015 issue
 
All eukaryotic organisms evolved through the aegis of natural selection 
but there is a big difference in how this occurs depending on the size 
of the organism. In unicellular microorganisms, which at one time in 
early earth history were probably the only living eukaryotic forms, 
natural selection plays a relatively minor role, but with size increase, 
first made possible by the invention of multicellularity, selection plays 
an increasingly central role in evolutionary change. This has come about 
because larger forms isolate themselves from their environment and become 
self sufficient. On the other hand, microorganisms are at the total mercy 
of changes in their immediate environment. These differences have had some 
interesting consequences. For instance extinctions, as in dinosaurs, are 
common among mega-organisms, and living fossils, such as the horse shoe 
crab, are rare. This is in sharp contrast to microorganisms where we find 
living fossils to be common. 


Submitted by John Bonner [jtbonner@princeton.edu] 
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[End dictyNews, volume 41, number 24]