The origins of multicellularity

There is great interest in the invention of multicellularity because it is one of the major transitions during the course of early evolution.1 Most of the emphasis has been on why it occurred. For instance, recently Gerhart and Kirschner2 have argued that a multicellular organism has gained the advantage of a unicellular ancestor because it can more effectively shield itself from the vagaries of the environment by producing its own internal environment. In broader terms, this is Dawkins'3 argument that a competitively effective way of carrying the genes from one generation to the next is by building a complex soma that safely sees to it that the germ plasm survives. © 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.