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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2008 May 20.
Published in final edited form as: J Evol Biol. 2007 Nov 23;21(1):104–110. doi: 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2007.01466.x

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Multicellularity in DISCOs. (a) The first five cell division of a DISCO with a genome that encodes for two X cells (green shaded regions) and one Y cell (blue shaded region). The first three cell divisions produce the somatic X and Y cells. Every further division produces offspring which is released into the environment. (b) The merit of this multicellular organism during the first and second 10 000 generations of the -X and +X simulations. The genome encodes for five (out of nine) logic functions as indicated by the nine-digit binary sequence. D, X, and Y cells can utilize these functions (second column) only according to their cell type specificity (first column) and receive a corresponding merit (third column) which is used to calculate the merit of the organism (fourth column). Note that Y cells are not able to increase the merit of the organism during the first 10 000 generations and that X cells are not able to increase the merit of the organism during the -X simulations. Cells that do not increase merit are disadvantageous, since they increase the number of cell divisions that are required to reach maturity. A more detailed description is available in the SOM.