Bacteria inhabit all known ecological niches and establish interactions with organisms from
all kingdoms of life. These interactions are mediated by a wide variety of mechanisms and …

Highlights•We survey ten key selective drivers favouring the evolution of simple
multicellularity.•The selective drivers of multicellularity depend on both lineage and …

Organisms as simple as bacteria can engage in complex collective actions, such as group
motility and fruiting body formation. Some of these actions involve a division of labor, where …

Background Artificial selection of microbial communities that perform better at a desired
process has seduced scientists for over a decade, but the method has not been …

Microbial communities are fundamental to life on Earth. Different strains within these
communities are often connected by a highly connected metabolic network, where the …

Bacillus subtilis is a soil-dwelling, spore-forming Gram-positive bacterium capable of cell
differentiation. For decades, B. subtilis has been used as a model organism to study …

One of the hallmark behaviors of social groups is division of labor, where different group
members become specialized to carry out complementary tasks. By dividing labor …

In colonies of the filamentous multicellular bacterium Streptomyces coelicolor, a
subpopulation of cells arises that hyperproduces metabolically costly antibiotics, resulting in …

In order to survive and reproduce, organisms must perform a multitude of tasks. However,
trade-offs limit their ability to allocate energy and resources to all of these different …

Highlights•Division of labour is widespread in unicellular and multicellular bacteria.•
Actinomycetes vary enormously in reproductive and metabolic divisions of labour.•Division …