Frozen Evolution. Or, that’s not the way it is, Mr. Darwin. A Farewell to Selfish Gene.

The situation is somewhat different for organisms that have a mechanical barrier preventing movement of the individual cells or cell nuclei inside the body of a multicellular organism.An example of such organisms consists in plants, where the movement of cells is prevented by their mutual strongly connected cell walls.In organisms with immobile somatic cells, there is much less danger of formation of mutations that would lead to breakage of the Weismann barrier between the somatic and germinal cells and to subsequent endangering of the integrity of the multicellular organism.Here, the mutated cell cannot move into the germinal organs (Buss 1987).This apparently enabled loosening or rather failure to form the Weismann barrier in plants and other groups of organisms with similar body structure. Here, germinal tissues and organs can differentiate from somatic tissues in any phase of ontogenesis.In this case, amphimixis, which prevents a “conspiracy” of the genes of a single cell, and the fact that any germinal organs formed in unusual sites in the body of the organism probably produce fewer sex cells than the proper germinal organs of the particular individual, are adequate mechanisms to ensure sufficiently effective defense against spreading of somatic cell mutations endangering the integrity of the individual.