Evolutionary conflict and coloniality in animals

Despite considerable interest in the effects of evolutionary conflict in colonies of social insects, relatively little attention has been paid to this issue in clonal animals with modular construction, such as colonial ascidians, bryozoans, and cnidarians. These colonial animals are structural individuals, subdivided into repeated morphological modules, which can individually acquire, process, and share resources. While size‐related selection favors colony formation, evolutionary conflicts remain a potent obstacle to such cooperation. These conflicts can occur at several levels and must be mediated for cooperation to emerge. Module‐level conflicts potentially result in coalitions of genetically similar modules failing to share resources or monopolizing reproduction. Mediation occurs by a number of mechanisms including: (a) a single‐module bottleneck at the initiation of colony formation, (b) allorecognition that limits colony fusion to close kin, (c) development of new modules from connective tissue, (d) synchronization of module budding, (e) programmed module death, (f) terminal differentiation of reproductive modules, and (g) architectural constraints. Effective mediation of module‐level conflicts, however, may in some cases contribute to cell‐level conflicts. Animal colonies typically have multipotent stem cells, and genetically variant stem cells can potentially monopolize gamete formation. Limiting colony fusion to close kin may not eliminate such conflict. Finally, in at least some taxa an association between photosymbiosis and coloniality is found. Allocation of photosynthate can lead to host‐symbiont conflicts that can be mediated by housing symbionts intracellularly and using chemiosmotic mechanisms to detect defectors. Colonial animals thus serve as a living laboratory of evolutionary conflict and its mediation.