Hologenomic interactions promote the higher-order evolvability of phenotypic complexity.

Hologenomic interactions significantly enhance the evolvability of phenotypic complexity by expanding heritable variation and enabling novel traits in the holobiont system.

• Why it matters: Understanding the origins and inheritance of complex phenotypes is limited by models focusing solely on host genomes, neglecting multigenome interactions that influence evolution.
• What they did: The authors developed a framework that treats multigenome interactions within the holobiont as a key factor, incorporating mechanisms that increase phenotypic diversity and adaptive potential.
• The result: This approach reveals that many evolutionary innovations depend on hologenomic targets, offering new insights into macroevolutionary processes and guiding methods to quantify their impact.