Datensatz

Zusammenfassung

Evolutionary dynamics are controlled by a number of driving forces, such
as natural selection, random genetic drift and dispersal. In this
perspective article, we aim to emphasize that these forces act at the
population level, and that it is a challenge to understand how they
emerge from the stochastic and deterministic behaviour of individual
cells. Even the most basic steric interactions between neighbouring
cells can couple evolutionary outcomes of otherwise unrelated
individuals, thereby weakening natural selection and enhancing random
genetic drift. Using microbial examples of varying degrees of
complexity, we demonstrate how strongly cell-cell interactions influence
evolutionary dynamics, especially in pattern-forming systems. As pattern
formation itself is subject to evolution, we propose to study the
feedback between pattern formation and evolutionary dynamics, which
could be key to predicting and potentially steering evolutionary
processes. Such an effort requires extending the systems biology
approach from the cellular to the population scale.