https://phys.org/news/2022-10-multicellular-bacteria-species.html

"The bacterium, HS-3, was isolated from a limestone cave wall that is intermittently submerged by an underground river. HS-3 has two distinct life phases; on a solid surface it self-organizes into a layer-structured colony with the properties of a liquid crystal. After maturation, the HS-3 colony forms a semi-closed sphere housing clusters of "daughter" coccobacillus (short rod-shaped) cells, which are released upon contact with water.

"'The emergence of multicellularity is one of the greatest mysteries of life on Earth," states corresponding author Kouhei Mizuno, a professor at the National Institute of Technology (KOSEN), Tokyo, Japan. "The point is that we already know the superior function and adaptability of multicellularity, but we know almost nothing about its origins. Established function and adaptability are not necessarily their own formative driving force. A curiosity of multicellularity is the conflict between the 'benefits of individuals' versus the 'benefit of the group' that must have existed in the early stage of the evolutionary transition. We don't have a good existing model to study multicellularity except theoretical models."

***

"The team used microscopies to analyze the colony growth. The cells started to reproduce simply as coccobacilli, but the occurrence of cell elongation caused the colony to form a single-layered structure, orientated like a liquid crystal. Bulges form particularly at the colony edge, relieving internal pressure and granting HS-3 the unique ability to maintain this two-dimensional liquid arrangement for a prolonged period, which may be a prerequisite for HS-3 to establish multicellular behavior.

"Then, the colony then expanded to form additional layers. The internal filamentous cells buckled, generating vortex-structured domains. These domains and the liquid crystal-like arrangement explain the transparency observed in HS-3 colonies on agar. After two days, rapid cell reproduction occurred internally and the colony began to swell three-dimensionally, forming a semi-closed sphere housing the coccobacillus cells. After the fifth day, the internal cells were crowded-out of the colony, triggering a chain reaction of this event in adjacent colonies and thereby indicating some multicellular control.

"As the cave wall sampling site of HS-3 was regularly subject to flowing water in the cave, the team submerged the mature semi-sphere colonies in water. The internal coccobacilli were released into the water, leaving behind the filamentous cell architecture. By plating these daughter cells on fresh agar, they discovered that the cells were able to reproduce the original filamentous structure, showing that the two distinct phases of HS-3's life cycle are reversible, and may have arisen due to the changing conditions inside the cave.

***

"'The first stage of HS-3's life cycle suggests that the liquid crystal-like organization is involved in the emergence of multicellularity, which has not been reported before. The existence of the second life stage implicates the involvement of dynamic water environment in the emergence of HS-3's multicellularity," says co-corresponding author Kazuya Morikawa, a professor in the Division of Biomedical Science, University of Tsukuba, Japan."

Comment: this is similar to other findings as in amoeba colonies. Still not an answer to the origin of multicellularity.

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-evolution-social-distancing-life.html

"In this paper, the researchers took evolutionary tools to study the growth of biofilms, the most common bacterial lifestyle characterized by the tight clustering of bacterial cells on surfaces. "Surprisingly, we found that the development of bacterial biofilms is comparable to animal embryogenesis. This means that bacteria are true multicellular organisms just like we are. Considering that the oldest known fossils are bacterial biofilms, it is quite likely that the first life was also multicellular, and not a single-celled creature as considered so far," says Prof Tomislav

***

"microbiologists have recognized that bacterial cells live a rich social life in biofilms. However, it has remained unclear if these diverse interactions comprise a multicellular organism. "Evolutionary methods to study collective behavior of cells in animal development were at hand, but no one tried to transfer this technology from animal embryos to bacterial biofilms. Perhaps people were uncomfortable to challenge the special status of animal multicellularity, the idea that is culturally hardwired," says Domazet-Lošo.

"Previous work of Domazet-Lošo and his team was focused on evolutionary genomics and animal development. They were able to show that evolution is mirrored in embryos, thus confirming the old conjecture that ontogeny parallels phylogeny in animals.

***

"'Surprisingly, we found that evolutionary younger genes were increasingly expressed toward the later timepoints of biofilm growth. In other words, we found that Bacillus ontogeny strongly recapitulates phylogeny. So far, these patterns have been considered the signature of embryo development in complex eukaryotes," says Domazet-Lošo. The research team then followed the trail and looked for other features of embryogenesis in biofilms like stage-organized architecture, increased use of multicellularity genes and molecular links to morphology changes, and to their excitement, they found these properties, as well."

Comment: There is no question here is an imitation of multicellular organisms. Perhaps a step to multicellularity. We know amoeba can form colonies that create stalks and spores. but I think they are straining too much to see this as true multicellularity.

DAVID: A review of current thought, starting with the recognition that single-celled forms were highly complex before multicellularity appeared:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/scientists-debate-the-origin-of-cell-types-in-the-first-...

QUOTE: "The recent work paints a picture of ancestral single-celled organisms that were already amazingly complex. They possessed the plasticity and versatility to slip back and forth between several states — to differentiate as today’s stem cells do and then dedifferentiate back to a less specialized form. The research implies that mechanisms of cellular differentiation predated the gradual rise of multicellular animals. (David’s bold)

These observations, he said, suggest that spatial cell differentiation was already happening in the choanoflagellate lineage, and perhaps even earlier — a possibility that blends the new ideas (that the capacity for differentiation is ancient and the transition to animal multicellularity was gradual) with the old (that this could happen with choanoflagellate-like cells)."

DAVID: Note my bold in the first quote which tells us that single-celled early forms were highly complex. This implies to me that the very first life cells were highly complex, and therefore had to be designed. The basis for eventual multicellularity was designed into those first cells

dhw:Of course they were highly complex, and this whole article fits in perfectly with the argument that no matter what “lineage” of cells we’re talking about, single cells already had the ability to change their nature, and so it is perfectly logical to suggest that once cells began to form communities, they were able to create the innovations which led to the evolution of all subsequent life forms. Hence common descent. I agree with you that such a mechanism seems far too complex to have arisen by chance. That is one of the strongest arguments for a conscious designer, and is a major reason for my own unwillingness to embrace atheism. You already know my reasons for not embracing theism.

Under “Cambrian explosion”:
DAVID: Nothing new. They find some new forms and have no explanation as to why the Cambrian is so different from what preceded except more oxygen appeared. No help for poor Darwin who recognized the danger of the Cambrian gap to his theory

dhw: Ah, but “poor Darwin” never knew that there was an alternative to his theory of random mutations and gradual refinements – a theory that would explain the Cambrian and every other mystery arising from Chapter Two in the history of life, and would fit in perfectly well with the theory of common descent which even you, David, have accepted. Three cheers for the champions of “cellular intelligence” (leading to Shapiro’s natural genetic engineering), and “poor Darwin” could have ended his masterpiece with praise for the Creator who designed the mechanism that led to the “most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals”. Don’t you just love it?

Yes, God-designed genetic intelligent information helps cells beautifully.

QUOTE: "The recent work paints a picture of ancestral single-celled organisms that were already amazingly complex. They possessed the plasticity and versatility to slip back and forth between several states — to differentiate as today’s stem cells do and then dedifferentiate back to a less specialized form. The research implies that mechanisms of cellular differentiation predated the gradual rise of multicellular animals. (David’s bold)

These observations, he said, suggest that spatial cell differentiation was already happening in the choanoflagellate lineage, and perhaps even earlier — a possibility that blends the new ideas (that the capacity for differentiation is ancient and the transition to animal multicellularity was gradual) with the old (that this could happen with choanoflagellate-like cells)."

DAVID: Note my bold in the first quote which tells us that single-celled early forms were highly complex. This implies to me that the very first life cells were highly complex, and therefore had to be designed. The basis for eventual multicellularity was designed into those first cells

Of course they were highly complex, and this whole article fits in perfectly with the argument that no matter what “lineage” of cells we’re talking about, single cells already had the ability to change their nature, and so it is perfectly logical to suggest that once cells began to form communities, they were able to create the innovations which led to the evolution of all subsequent life forms. Hence common descent. I agree with you that such a mechanism seems far too complex to have arisen by chance. That is one of the strongest arguments for a conscious designer, and is a major reason for my own unwillingness to embrace atheism. You already know my reasons for not embracing theism.

Under “Cambrian explosion”:
DAVID: Nothing new. They find some new forms and have no explanation as to why the Cambrian is so different from what preceded except more oxygen appeared. No help for poor Darwin who recognized the danger of the Cambrian gap to his theory

Ah, but “poor Darwin” never knew that there was an alternative to his theory of random mutations and gradual refinements – a theory that would explain the Cambrian and every other mystery arising from Chapter Two in the history of life, and would fit in perfectly well with the theory of common descent which even you, David, have accepted. Three cheers for the champions of “cellular intelligence” (leading to Shapiro’s natural genetic engineering), and “poor Darwin” could have ended his masterpiece with praise for the Creator who designed the mechanism that led to the “most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals”. Don’t you just love it?

https://www.quantamagazine.org/scientists-debate-the-origin-of-cell-types-in-the-first-...

"The recent work paints a picture of ancestral single-celled organisms that were already amazingly complex. They possessed the plasticity and versatility to slip back and forth between several states — to differentiate as today’s stem cells do and then dedifferentiate back to a less specialized form. The research implies that mechanisms of cellular differentiation predated the gradual rise of multicellular animals. (my bold)

***

"In the 2000s, more than a century after Haeckel proposed his theory, genomic evidence confirmed that choanoflagellates were animals’ closest living relatives. “Out of the many single-cell eukaryotes out there, 150 years ago choanoflagellates had been proposed as a close relative of animals,” said Pawel Burkhardt, a molecular biologist at the Sars International Center for Marine Molecular Biology in Norway. “Then the first genome was sequenced, and bam! It actually was really true.”

***

"But uncertainty about that clear and elegant story has been growing over the past decade. The idea that animals arose from a colony of choanoflagellate-like cells implies that cell differentiation evolved after multicellularity did. But “the data is demonstrating that it’s not like that,” said Iñaki Ruiz-Trillo, an evolutionary biologist at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Barcelona.

"The first complication came in 2008, when a group of scientists, in an effort to more precisely map out the evolutionary relationships among animals on the tree of life, identified comb jellies rather than sponges as the earliest animals. The finding generated controversy. “It’s still very much a heated question,” Gold said, “but I think it forced the community to reappraise the classic narrative.”

***

"Back in 1949, the Russian biologist Alexey Zakhvatkin had proposed that multicellular animals evolved when temporally differentiating cells formed colonies and began to commit to particular stages in their life cycles, allowing a few cell types to exist at once. Ruiz-Trillo and his colleagues provided further evidence for this so-called temporal-to-spatial transition. In a series of studies, they showed that certain families of regulatory proteins supposedly unique to animals, including those involved in cell differentiation, were actually already present in their far more ancient unicellular relatives.

***

"They expected to establish that sponge choanocytes had gene expression profiles most like those of choanoflagellates. Instead, they found that another type of sponge cell did.

That cell type, called an archaeocyte, acts like a stem cell for the sponge: It can differentiate into any other cell type the animal might need. Some of the gene expression patterns in archaeocytes are significantly similar to those of the protists during particular life cycle stages, according to Bernard Degnan. “They’re expressing genes that suggest that they have an ancestral regulatory system,” he said. “All animals are just variations on that theme that was created a long time ago.”

***

"According to some experts, we can think of the single-celled organisms that came before animals as stem cells of sorts: They could go on dividing forever, and they could perform a variety of functions, including reproduction. Other early animals, such as jellyfish, show a great deal of that seemingly ancestral plasticity as well.

***

" In a preprint they posted on biorxiv.org in May, Burkhardt and his colleagues found that the cells in a choanoflagellate colony are not all identical: They differ in their morphology and in the ratio of their organelles. These observations, he said, suggest that spatial cell differentiation was already happening in the choanoflagellate lineage, and perhaps even earlier — a possibility that blends the new ideas (that the capacity for differentiation is ancient and the transition to animal multicellularity was gradual) with the old (that this could happen with choanoflagellate-like cells)."

Comment: Note my bold in the first quote which tells us that single-celled early forms were highly complex. This implies to me that the very first life cells were highly complex, and therefore had to be designed. The basis for eventual multicellularity was designed into those first cells

https://phys.org/news/2019-02-amoebae-diversified-million-years-earlier.html

"The study, which was supported by São Paulo Research Foundation—FAPESP, revealed eight new ancestral lineages of Thecamoebae, the largest group in Amoebozoa. Thecamoebians are known as testates because of their hard outer carapace or shell.

"Interpretations of the evolution of Earth's atmosphere and climate change are also affected by the discovery that amoebae are more diverse than previously thought.

***

"According to Lahr, the study presents a different view of how microorganisms evolved on the planet. The late Precambrian was considered a period of low biotic diversity, with only a few species of bacteria and some protists.

"'It was in this period 800 million years ago that the oceans became oxygenated. For a long time, oxygenation was assumed to have led to diversification of the eukaryotes, unicellular and multicellular organisms in which the cell's nucleus is isolated by a membrane, culminating in the diversification of macroorganisms millions of years later in the Cambrian," Lahr said.

"The study, he added, focuses on a detail of this question. "We show that diversification apparently already existed in the Precambrian and that it probably occurred at the same time as ocean oxygenation. What's more, geophysicists are discovering that this process was slow and may have lasted 100 million years or so," he said.

"However, scientists do not know what pressure triggered this oxygenation. "Regardless of the cause, oxygenation eventually led to more niches, the eukaryotes diversified, and there was more competition for niches. One way to resolve the competition was for some lineages to become larger and hence multicellular," Lahr said. (my bold)

***

"In addition to the discovery of greater diversity in the Precambrian, the study also innovates by reconstructing the morphology of the ancestors of thecamoebians to establish that the vase-shaped microfossils (VSMs) found in various parts of the world already existed in the Precambrian and even in the major ice ages that occurred during this era.

"VSMs are presumed to be fossils of testate amoebae. They are unicellular and eukaryotic and have an external skeleton. Significant diversity of VSMs has been documented for the Neoproterozoic Era, which spanned between 1 billion and 541 million years ago, and was the terminal era of the Precambrian.

"In addition to the lack of DNA-containing fossils, the researchers faced another obstacle in reconstructing the phylogenetic tree: thecamoebians cannot be cultured in the laboratory, and genetic sequencing by conventional means is therefore ruled out.

"The solution to this problem was to use the single-cell transcriptome technique to analyze phylogenetics (instead of gene expression, its normal application). "We sequenced whole transcriptomes of arcellinid amoebae using live samples," Lahr explained. "This yielded several thousand genes and some 100,000 amino acid sites, or 100,000 datapoints giving us the phylogenetic tree, which had never been seen before."

"The researchers used transcriptome-based methodology to
capture all messenger RNAs from each individual cell and convert them into a sequenceable complementary DNA library."

Comment: No question, lowly amoeba led the way to multicellularity, but as my bold above shows, we recognize that oxygen appeared in larger quantities, but science doesn't know what drove the changes. But the Cambrian Explosion gap is not any smaller.

QUOTE: "Widely known simply as the Turing Model, RD is a theoretical construct used to explain self-regulated pattern formation in the developing animal embryo.
"The model, Cooper says, explains the progression of epithelial appendages – external structures such as hair, feathers, scales, spines and teeth – over at least 450 million years, a timeframe that spans the evolution of vertebrates.
"These structures, he says, all possess similar developmental positioning in relation to one another because they grow from a common foundation – the thickened areas of the epithelium known as placodes.

DAVID’s comment: Perhaps the diversity is not as diverse as it appears. More evidence patterns guide evolution. Easy to imagine a designer would set up patterns in advance. It helps explain convergence. (dhw’s bold).

dhw: The article clearly illustrates common descent. I find it easy to imagine self-regulating cells/cell communities combining to form patterns and, as conditions change, changing their patterns in an ongoing process of variation and innovation. I don’t see patterns “guiding” evolution, but evolution resulting from organisms creating and varying patterns. Convergence simply means that organisms develop similar patterns to deal with similar conditions. What I find difficult to imagine is organisms developing (or in your hypothesis being given) new patterns in advance of the conditions that require or allow for change.

DAVID: It may be hard for you to imagine, but imagination is not scientific evidence. I've presented many articles on patterns that are found, like this one.

dhw: A designer setting up patterns in advance may be easy for you to imagine (see my bold), but your imagination is not scientific evidence. I am not questioning the existence of patterns. I am questioning your hypothetical explanation of them, and have offered an alternative which seems to me more logical.

I agree this pattern, as well as others, support common descent, going back 450 million years. As for design, it is set in faith at this point. We reach different logical results.

DAVID’s comment: Perhaps the diversity is not as diverse as it appears. More evidence patterns guide evolution. Easy to imagine a designer would set up patterns in advance. It helps explain convergence. (dhw’s bold).

dhw: The article clearly illustrates common descent. I find it easy to imagine self-regulating cells/cell communities combining to form patterns and, as conditions change, changing their patterns in an ongoing process of variation and innovation. I don’t see patterns “guiding” evolution, but evolution resulting from organisms creating and varying patterns. Convergence simply means that organisms develop similar patterns to deal with similar conditions. What I find difficult to imagine is organisms developing (or in your hypothesis being given) new patterns in advance of the conditions that require or allow for change.

DAVID: It may be hard for you to imagine, but imagination is not scientific evidence. I've presented many articles on patterns that are found, like this one.

A designer setting up patterns in advance may be easy for you to imagine (see my bold), but your imagination is not scientific evidence. I am not questioning the existence of patterns. I am questioning your hypothetical explanation of them, and have offered an alternative which seems to me more logical.

QUOTE: "Widely known simply as the Turing Model, RD is a theoretical construct used to explain self-regulated pattern formation in the developing animal embryo.

"The model, Cooper says, explains the progression of epithelial appendages – external structures such as hair, feathers, scales, spines and teeth – over at least 450 million years, a timeframe that spans the evolution of vertebrates.

"These structures, he says, all possess similar developmental positioning in relation to one another because they grow from a common foundation – the thickened areas of the epithelium known as placodes.

DAVID’s comment: Perhaps the diversity is not as diverse as it appears. More evidence patterns guide evolution. Easy to imagine a designer would set up patterns in advance. It helps explain convergence.

dhw: The article clearly illustrates common descent. I find it easy to imagine self-regulating cells/cell communities combining to form patterns and, as conditions change, changing their patterns in an ongoing process of variation and innovation. I don’t see patterns “guiding” evolution, but evolution resulting from organisms creating and varying patterns. Convergence simply means that organisms develop similar patterns to deal with similar conditions. What I find difficult to imagine is organisms developing (or in your hypothesis being given) new patterns in advance of the conditions that require or allow for change.

It may be hard for you to imagine, but imagination is not scientific evidence. I've presented many articles on patterns that are found, like this one.

"The model, Cooper says, explains the progression of epithelial appendages – external structures such as hair, feathers, scales, spines and teeth – over at least 450 million years, a timeframe that spans the evolution of vertebrates.

"These structures, he says, all possess similar developmental positioning in relation to one another because they grow from a common foundation – the thickened areas of the epithelium known as placodes.

DAVID’s comment: Perhaps the diversity is not as diverse as it appears. More evidence patterns guide evolution. Easy to imagine a designer would set up patterns in advance. It helps explain convergence.

The article clearly illustrates common descent. I find it easy to imagine self-regulating cells/cell communities combining to form patterns and, as conditions change, changing their patterns in an ongoing process of variation and innovation. I don’t see patterns “guiding” evolution, but evolution resulting from organisms creating and varying patterns. Convergence simply means that organisms develop similar patterns to deal with similar conditions. What I find difficult to imagine is organisms developing (or in your hypothesis being given) new patterns in advance of the conditions that require or allow for change.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/alan-turing-s-equations-explain-shark-skin

"Alan Turing’s explanation for how modern animals developed their scales, feathers and hair may have even broader application.

"New research suggests the famous mathematician’s famous reaction-diffusion (RD) model also explains the development of the shark’s tooth-line skin.

"That’s significant, according to zoologist Rory Cooper from the University of Sheffield, UK, because while previous research has found support for RD patterning in four-legged animals, its role in earlier-diverging lineages has not been clear.

"Widely known simply as the Turing Model, RD is a theoretical construct used to explain self-regulated pattern formation in the developing animal embryo.

"The model, Cooper says, explains the progression of epithelial appendages – external structures such as hair, feathers, scales, spines and teeth – over at least 450 million years, a timeframe that spans the evolution of vertebrates.

"These structures, he says, all possess similar developmental positioning in relation to one another because they grow from a common foundation – the thickened areas of the epithelium known as placodes.

"In their recent research, described in a paper published in Science Advances, Cooper and colleagues from the UK and the US studied the small-spotted catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula) at about 80 days post-fertilisation, using RD modelling and gene expression analysis.

"The modelling showed that dorsal denticle rows acted as “initiator” rows, triggering the patterning of surrounding tooth-like skin.

"The researchers compared the patterning of shark denticles to chick feathers, in which RD modelling is at play, by examining the expression of a protein called beta-catenin that is an early regulator of chick epithelial placode signalling – and determined a similarity.

"The shark lateral line expressed the protein soon before denticle patterning began, a comparable timeline to feather patterning.

"They then used the RD model to explain the diversity of denticle patterning in other ancient cartilaginous fishes – the thornback skate (Raja clavate) and the little skate (Leucoraja erinacea) – and suggest it may have aided the evolution of such functions as protective armour, hydrodynamic drag reduction, feeding and communication

“'We propose that a diverse range of vertebrate appendages, from shark denticles to avian feathers and mammalian hair, use this ancient and conserved system, with slight genetic modulation accounting for broad variations in patterning,” the researchers conclude."

Comment: Perhaps the diversity is not as diverse as it appears. More evidence patterns guide evolution. Easy to imagine a designer would set up patterns in advance. It helps explain convergence.

DAVID's comment: Note the bold. Could pre-programming be the key? I've suggested this as God's way of managing evolution.

dhw: Yes indeed you have. You are, I presume, suggesting that 3.8 billion years ago your God preprogrammed the first cells to make sure a certain type of spider would use three forms of camouflage on the Hawaiian islands in order to provide energy to keep life going until he could fulfil his sole purpose of producing the brain of Homo sapiens.

I wonder if perhaps these three forms have proved adequate to ensure the spiders’ survival, and so they don’t need to evolve anything different. And I wonder if this isn’t the basis of convergence – that organisms with similar problems find similar solutions. And I wonder what would happen if the vegetation turned orange with pink stripes. My prediction would be that if it did, either the spiders would adapt and survive, or they would fail to adapt and would perish. I shall apply for a grant to develop this theory.

And it's all because God gave them pattern to follow for adaptation.That is what convergence is as a phenomenon in evolution.

"While the exact reasons remain unclear, Gillespie and her team hope that further research into the similarities within this select group of organisms that evolve the same forms over and again will “provide insight into what elements of evolution are predictable, and under which circumstances we expect evolution to be predictable and under which we do not'”.

DAVID's comment: Note the bold. Could pre-programming be the key? I've suggested this as God's way of managing evolution.

Yes indeed you have. You are, I presume, suggesting that 3.8 billion years ago your God preprogrammed the first cells to make sure a certain type of spider would use three forms of camouflage on the Hawaiian islands in order to provide energy to keep life going until he could fulfil his sole purpose of producing the brain of Homo sapiens.

I wonder if perhaps these three forms have proved adequate to ensure the spiders’ survival, and so they don’t need to evolve anything different. And I wonder if this isn’t the basis of convergence – that organisms with similar problems find similar solutions. And I wonder what would happen if the vegetation turned orange with pink stripes. My prediction would be that if it did, either the spiders would adapt and survive, or they would fail to adapt and would perish. I shall apply for a grant to develop this theory.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/colonising-spiders-evolve-the-same-three-forms-every...

"Remarkably, Gillespie and her international team, using a mixture of genetic analysis and software modelling, have discovered that the stick spiders constantly re-evolve these same three forms, known as ecomorphs, in a rare example of repeated and predictable convergent evolution.

***

"As, say, a dark species moved to a newer island, it would quickly evolve into three new species, each displaying one of the three ecomorphs. As other Ariamnes species arrived they too would evolve into the three ecomorphs, leaving a pattern of bewildering relations between them. Species that look the same may well be distantly related, while species exhibiting different forms might be close evolutionary kin.

"Importantly, these three forms remain constant.

“'They don't evolve to be orange or striped. There isn't any additional diversification,” says Gillespie.

"This is incredibly rare, only occurring in a lizard species from the Caribbean and, interestingly, another spider species from Hawaii.

"The researchers think a unique set of circumstances bring about this evolutionary déjà vu – a lack of diversity in predators, a limited set of genetics with a possible preprogramed DNA switch to facilitate the emergence of the three ecomorphs, a free-living lifestyle, and an environment that rewards only certain types of camouflage, all seem to contribute. (my bold)

"While the exact reasons remain unclear, Gillespie and her team hope that further research into the similarities within this select group of organisms that evolve the same forms over and again will “provide insight into what elements of evolution are predictable, and under which circumstances we expect evolution to be predictable and under which we do not'”.

Comment: Note the bold. Could pre-programming be the key? I've suggested this as God's way of managing evolution.

https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/52032/title/Hawaiian-Spiders-on-...

"The Hawaiian stick spider has evolved the same three color morphs on multiple different islands in parallel, according to research led by biologists at the University of California, Berkeley. The team’s findings, published today (March 8) in Current Biology, provide a rare example of evolution producing the same outcome multiple times and could throw light on the factors constraining evolutionary change.

“'The possibility that whole communities of these spiders have evolved convergently is certainly exciting,” Ambika Kamath, a behavioral ecologist at the University of California at Santa Barbara who didn’t take part in the study, tells The Atlantic. She adds that the study provides insight into the “deterministic processes that shape the diversity of life.”
To study the stick spider’s biological past, evolutionary ecologist Rosemary Gillespie of UC Berkeley and her colleagues collected samples of the most prominent color morphs—each camouflaged for a different habitat—on Hawaii’s four largest islands. “You’ve got this dark one that lives in rocks or in bark, a shiny and reflective gold one that lives under leaves, and this one that's a matte white, completely white, that lives on lichen,” Gillespie explains in a statement.

"Yet when the researchers sequenced the arachnids’ DNA, they discovered that each morph showed more in common with different color morphs from the same island than with the same color morph from different islands. The phylogenetic tree created using the data suggests that the same color patterns must have evolved multiple times as the stick spiders spread to new habitats.

“'They arrive on an island, and boom! You get independent evolution to the same set of forms,” Gillespie says in the statement. “Most radiations just don’t do this,” she adds—although her team has previously reported a similar pattern of convergent evolution in another group of spiders in Hawaii, the spiny-legged Tetragnatha. “Now we’re thinking about why it’s only in these kinds of organisms that you get this sort of rapid and repeated evolution.”

"One possibility raised in the paper is that predation has constrained the range of color options available to this camouflaged species. The team has yet to identify the genes responsible for the color changes in the spiders, but an understanding of this process could add insight into the role of predation on evolution in prey, Dolph Schluter, an evolutionary biologist at the University of British Columbia in Canada, who was not involved in the study, tells Science. “This underscores how a rich environment having few other species spurs rapid evolution in the few [organisms] that by chance managed to get there.'”

Comment: This is certainly an evidence of patterns of control in evolution, gain providing evidence that God guided evolution using patterns of control. Tony and I discussed this with a Biblical quote from Genesis, making them in their own kind. Thursday, March 08, 2018, 19:15

https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/social-amoebae-reach-for-the-sky

"Dictyostelium discoideum amoebae are normally independent creatures, but hunger makes them social. Starvation can trigger tens of thousands of the amoebae to aggregate into a mobile slug that eventually differentiates into a fruiting body (seen in the picture above) that holds living spores aloft on stalks made of dead amoebae.

"About 20 percent of the amoebae sacrifice themselves to form the stalk that lifts living spores up and helps them disperse, carried off by insects.

"This clear separation into altruists (dead stalk cells) and beneficiaries (living spore cells) is reminiscent of an ant colony where the sterile workers assist their queen in reproducing."

Comment: Single celled organisms had to start cooperating if multicellularity was destined to appear. God guided them.

DAVID: You state that as a fact. My view is the smaller brain was incapable of the concept. Only the larger brain had both concept and implementation.

dhw: Sorry, I should keep repeating that it is my hypothesis. You keep harping on about size, and the question actually boils down to whether ideas are the product of the dualist’s soul or his brain. If you believe it is the soul that thinks/remembers/conceptualizes (dualism), clearly the size of the brain makes no difference except to the potential for implementation. If you believe the soul cannot think/remember/conceptualize without a functioning brain (as you keep saying on the “big brain evolution” thread), and cannot think bigger without a bigger brain, you are a materialist. Please make up your mind.

My mind has a concept about the relationship of brain and s/s/c you do not seem to recognize. I know when I open up my mind to thought. There is a temporal progression from no thought to thinking. I can be in a reverie without productive thought, which indicates my control. I am material and I can only approach my s/s/c when I start to think. I can only use my brain to make contact with my s/s/c. I=s s/s/c. You and I cannot get around the material brain is the gateway to the s/s/c. And I am convinced a more complex cortex must be present to allow the s/s/c to perform more complex thinking. Every development in the evolution of Homo shows us that. Complex cortex always results in more complex artifacts. Your hypothesis that a small brain can have a concept, but must enlarge to implement it has no basis in what we know about Homo evolution. Our discussion always deals with a material brain and an immaterial s/s/c, dual entities. Materialism always has to part of the discussion. Can you show me complete separation which you seem to imply?

NDE's show us the s/s/c can be separate from the brain and be entirely functional, and when reattached to the brain transmit all of its newly received information. This tells me there are two separate entities, brain and s/s/c which work together when attached. This also tells me the brain can receive information, can transmit information which is more than functional implementation, which you imply is all the brain does. It modifies to help with handling new concepts. Can you describe what you think implementation entails?

dhw: I have agreed over and over again that there is no proof, and that is why it remains a hypothesis, but unlike your own equally unproven hypothesis, it offers a coherent explanation of evolutionary history. I am aware of your firm belief that only God can design the weaverbird’s nest and the different stages of whale, neither of which have the remotest connection to his sole purpose of producing the brain of Homo sapiens. But I’m afraid firm belief is not a very persuasive argument.

DAVID: That is why you are agnostic.

My agnosticism is irrelevant. Some atheists also have a firm belief in the ability of chance to produce the complexities of living organisms. Do you regard their firm belief as a persuasive argument?

dhw: And I keep pointing out that a species can only survive if individuals survive. Do you have a closed mind to that? The survivability of individuals and of their whole species does not necessitate complexity. Anything backward there?

DAVID: Not my point: I originally brought up the point that sapiens lived at a survival level even though their new brain allowed for much more and there was a delay until they discovered how to use it.

Dealt with several times. My comment was in response to: “I’m still discussing species survival, not individual. Do you have a closed mind to that?” But I’m glad you have now dropped that unproductive theme.

DAVID: Only a more complex brain led to more complex human civilization. Complexity first.
dhw: Yes, it’s an on-going process. A concept that is not implemented won’t advance civilization, and so you are right to say the larger or more complex brain leads to the advance, though it cannot do so without the concept previously thought up by the smaller/less complex brain.

DAVID: You state that as a fact. My view is the smaller brail was incapable of the concept. Only the larger brain had both concept and implementation.

Sorry, I should keep repeating that it is my hypothesis. You keep harping on about size, and the question actually boils down to whether ideas are the product of the dualist’s soul or his brain. If you believe it is the soul that thinks/remembers/conceptualizes (dualism), clearly the size of the brain makes no difference except to the potential for implementation. If you believe the soul cannot think/remember/conceptualize without a functioning brain (as you keep saying on the “big brain evolution” thread), and cannot think bigger without a bigger brain, you are a materialist. Please make up your mind.

DAVID: There is no proof that cell committees have the design skill to invent an advanced species. I firmly believe only God can do it. And the whales prove the point, considering the complex physiology required at each step.

dhw: I have agreed over and over again that there is no proof, and that is why it remains a hypothesis, but unlike your own equally unproven hypothesis, it offers a coherent explanation of evolutionary history. I am aware of your firm belief that only God can design the weaverbird’s nest and the different stages of whale, neither of which have the remotest connection to his sole purpose of producing the brain of Homo sapiens. But I’m afraid firm belief is not a very persuasive argument.

That is why you are agnostic.

dhw: And I keep pointing out that a species can only survive if individuals survive. Do you have a closed mind to that? The survivability of individuals and of their whole species does not necessitate complexity. Anything backward there?

Not my point: I originally brought up the point that sapiens lived at a survival level even though their new brain allowed for much more and there was a delay until they discovered how to use it.

dhw: You say primates are top,and apes are more complex than birds but both have survived and have finished improving. Why is that the exact opposite of saying that enhanced survivability may result from attempts to improve, which may lead to greater complexity,

DAVID: Only a more complex brain led to more complex human civilization. Complexity first.

dhw: Yes, it’s an on-going process. A concept that is not implemented won’t advance civilization, and so you are right to say the larger or more complex brain leads to the advance, though it cannot do so without the concept previously thought up by the smaller/less complex brain.

You state that as a fact. My view is the smaller brail was incapable of the concept. Only the larger brain had both concept and implementation.

I have agreed over and over again that there is no proof, and that is why it remains a hypothesis, but unlike your own equally unproven hypothesis, it offers a coherent explanation of evolutionary history. I am aware of your firm belief that only God can design the weaverbird’s nest and the different stages of whale, neither of which have the remotest connection to his sole purpose of producing the brain of Homo sapiens. But I’m afraid firm belief is not a very persuasive argument.

dhw: I think we are close to agreement, but I would rephrase your comment: The need to survive is of prime importance as an evolutionary driving force. Survivability does not necessitate complexity, but enhanced survivability may result from successful attempts to improve, which may lead to greater complexity.
DAVID: Totally backward. […]
dhw: I have said that survivability does not necessitate complexity, and you tell me complexity is not necessary for individual survival. Totally backward?
DAVID: I'm still discussing species survival, not individual. Do you have a closed mind to that?

And I keep pointing out that a species can only survive if individuals survive. Do you have a closed mind to that? The survivability of individuals and of their whole species does not necessitate complexity. Anything backward there?

dhw: You say primates are top,and apes are more complex than birds but both have survived and have finished improving. Why is that the exact opposite of saying that enhanced survivability may result from attempts to improve, which may lead to greater complexity,
DAVID: Only a more complex brain led to more complex human civilization. Complexity first.

Yes, it’s an on-going process. A concept that is not implemented won’t advance civilization, and so you are right to say the larger or more complex brain leads to the advance, though it cannot do so without the concept previously thought up by the smaller/less complex brain. The process goes on repeating itself, as new concepts arise (often building on earlier concepts), and implementation creates greater complexity both in the brain and in civilization. That doesn’t alter the fact that a dualist cannot claim that ideas come from the brain.

dhw: I can’t see any connection between the two “concepts”, let alone why one is “totally backward” from the other.
DAVID: Your approach of 'push' is the reverse of mine, 'pull'.

I don’t know what that has to do with birds not being apes “in total complexity” and both surviving as species “so they are improved enough”, or how your “pull” proves that survivability is not a major issue.