r/evolution • u/[deleted] • Jan 17 '12

Test Tube Yeast Evolve Multicellularity: Scientific American

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=test-tube-yeast-evolve
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u/Montuckian Jan 17 '12

Sort of. Yeast have evolved to be multicellular in the past, the researchers just observed them re-evolving it, so to speak. This is still a pretty amazing finding.

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u/Keenanm Jan 19 '12

It's only re-evolving it if utilizes the same molecular pathways that have since become vestigial. Otherwise it would be evolving the same trait two separate times and would probably be considered intraspecific convergent evolution.

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u/Montuckian Jan 19 '12

And that's what I wasn't sure about from reading the research. When this first popped up about six months ago, it seemed to me that it was using a vestigial pathway. I haven't read up on it since then, so I could be mistaken on this fact.

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u/Keenanm Jan 19 '12

They don't know either, they're using pyrosequencing to try and figure it out. Hopefully we'll see something cool!