Polymorphism
Aggregate Trait Evolvability and Macroevolution in Two Sister Species of the Bryozoan *Stylopoma*
November 27, 2022Leventhal, S., Jamison-Todd, S., and Simpson, C., 2022. Aggregate Trait Evolvability and Macroevolution in Two Sister Species of the Bryozoan Stylopoma, Evolutionary Biology. doi.org/10.1007/s11692-022-09588-8 pdf The study of trait evolution in modular animals is more complicated than that in solitary animals, because a single genotype of a modular colony can...
Bryozoan revelations
March 30, 2022Simpson, C. and J. B. C. Jackson, 2022. Bryozoan Revelations, Science Advances. 8 (13), eabp9344. dooi:10.1126/sciadv.abp9344 Bryozoans, simple invertebrates living on the sea floor, are emerging as a model system for understanding ecological and evolutionary processes on macroevolutionary scales.
From the individual to the colony: marine invertebrates as models to understand levels of biological organization
March 20, 2021Laurel Sky Hiebert, Leandro M. Vieira, Stefano Tiozzo, Carl Simpson, Richard K. Grosberg, Alvaro E. Migotto, Andre C. Morandini, Federico D. Brown Simpson, C. (2021) From the individual to the colony: marine invertebrates as models to understand levels of biological organization. Journal of Experimental Zoology Part B: Molecular and Developmental...
An ecological driver for the macroevolution of morphological polymorphism within colonial invertebrates
May 13, 2020Simpson, C. (2020) An ecological driver for the macroevolution of morphological polymorphism within colonial invertebrates. Journal of Experimental Zoology Part B: Molecular and Developmental Evolution. DOI: 10.1002/(ISSN)1552-5015 Colonial marine invertebrates, such as corals and bryozoans, have modular growth. Individual modules within a colony are homologous to an individual solitary animal...
Coloniality, clonality, and modularity in animals: The elephant in the room
April 29, 2020Hiebert, Laurel S., Carl Simpson, and Stefano Tiozzo. Coloniality, clonality, and modularity in animals: The elephant in the room. Journal of Experimental Zoology Part B: Molecular and Developmental Evolution (2020). Nearly half of the animal phyla contain species that propagate asexually via agametic reproduction, often forming colonies of genetically identical...
How colonial animals evolve.
September 18, 2019Simpson, Carl, Amalia Herrera-Cubilla, and Jeremy BC Jackson. “How colonial animals evolve.” Science Advances 6, no. 2 (2020): eaaw9530. The evolution of modular colonial animals such as reef corals and bryozoans is enigmatic because of the ability for modules to proliferate asexually as whole colonies reproduce sexually. This reproductive duality...
Bryozoan basics
November 7, 2016Bryozoans are a phylum of colonial animals. They first appear in the fossil record during the early Ordovician (~480 million years ago.) Since that time, bryozoans have been a major component of the fossil record and of marine communities. Their colonies are modular, with individual animals, called zooids, forming the...
Evolutionary determinants of morphological polymorphism in colonial animals
April 20, 2016Simpson, C., Jackson, J. B. C., Herrera-Cubilla, A. 2017. Evolutionary determinants of morphological polymorphism in colonial animals. American Naturalist. 190(1): 17-28. link Preprint version available at bioRxiv doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/046409 pdf Colonial animals commonly exhibit morphologically polymorphic modular units that are phenotypically distinct and specialize in specific functional tasks. But how...
The evolutionary history of division of labour
April 10, 2015Simpson, C. 2012. The evolutionary history of division of labour. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 279:116–121. pdf Functional specialization, or division of labour (DOL), of parts within organisms and colonies is common in most multi-cellular, colonial and social organisms, but it is far from ubiquitous. Several mechanisms...
Expansion and the hierarchical structure of levels of selection
September 21, 2013Evolutionary success comes to the selfish—or so most biologists are taught. Those organisms that reproduce most will of course be better represented in future generations. Current theory has had great success using this fact to understand much of evolution, but it hits a wall when it comes to understanding how...