Reproductive division of labor (e.g. germ-soma specialization) is a hallmark of the evolution of multicellularity, signifying the emergence of a new type of individual and facilitating the evolution of increased organismal complexity. A large body of work from evolutionary biology, economics, and ecology has shown that specialization is beneficial when further division of labor produces an accelerating increase in absolute productivity (i.e. productivity is a convex function of specialization). Here we show that reproductive specialization is qualitatively different from classical models of resource sharing, and can evolve even when the benefits of specialization are saturating (i.e. productivity is a concave function of specialization). Through analytical theory and evolutionary individual-based simulations, we demonstrate that reproductive specialization is strongly favored in sparse networks of cellular interactions that reflect the morphology of early, simple multicellular organisms, highlighting the importance of restricted social interactions in the evolution of reproductive specialization.

中文翻译：

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早期多细胞的拓扑限制有利于生殖分工

生殖分工（例如生殖体专门化）是多细胞进化的标志，标志着新型个体的出现并促进了有机体复杂性的进化。进化生物学、经济学和生态学的大量研究表明，当进一步的劳动分工加速绝对生产率的提高（即生产率是专业化的凸函数）时，专业化是有益的。在这里，我们表明，生殖专业化与资源共享的经典模型有质的不同，并且即使在专业化的好处饱和时也可以进化（即生产力是专业化的凹函数）。通过分析理论和基于个体的进化模拟，我们证明了生殖专业化在反映早期简单多细胞生物形态的稀疏细胞相互作用网络中受到强烈青睐，强调了有限的社会相互作用在生殖专业化进化中的重要性。