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Mapping life's disparity and evolutionary constraints in a geometric complexity space.
Guillaume Dera1, Elise Nardin1, Laurent Risser2
1Géosciences Environnement Toulouse (GET), CNRS UMR 5563, Université de Toulouse, IRD, CNES, Toulouse, France.
Science Advances
|January 7, 2026
Summary
Life
Area of Science:
- Evolutionary biology
- Morphology
- Complex systems
Background:
- The diversity of life's forms is vast, but the full morphological range remains unknown.
- Understanding the limits of biological form is key to evolutionary studies.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore the morphological limits of life.
- To compare unicellular and multicellular phyla using fractal descriptors.
- To understand the physical, metabolic, and developmental constraints on biological forms.
Main Methods:
- Developed a geometric complexity space.
- Utilized fractal descriptors for body mass and structure.
- Analyzed a large dataset of extant biological shapes.
Main Results:
- Life occupies a small fraction of possible structural forms.
- Biological shapes cluster around linear, rounded, and dense forms.
- Complex heteromorphic forms are consistently avoided due to physical and developmental limitations.
Conclusions:
- Evolutionary forms are constrained by physical, metabolic, and developmental factors.
- These constraints, shaped by body size and lifestyle, limit life's morphological diversity.
- Provides a quantitative view on evolution's interplay of chance and necessity, with implications for extraterrestrial life.
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