How does multicellularity evolve? Scientists who study a family of green algae that includes unicellular Chlamydomonas and multicellular Volvox are beginning to find answers to this question.

Infographic: The Evolution of Volvox View full size JPG | PDF Lucy Reading-Ikkanda (diagrams and cells); SOURCE: David L. Kirk The volvocine algae are a model system for studying the evolution of ...

Scientists have shown that the genetic region that determines sex in Volvox has changed dramatically relative to that of the closely related unicellular alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. Their ...

Volvox and its relatives live in freshwater ponds all over the world. Some of the species are unicellular, while others live in colonies of up to 50,000 cells. Many of the colonial algae species ...

Unlike the case in plants and animals whose unicellular ancestors are very distantly related, male and female sexes in Volvox evolved relatively recently from mating types in an ancestor that was ...

The green algae in the Volvox lineage have come up with yet another set of ideas. So why bother with multicellular selves at all when unicellular selves obviously do just fine? One answer is that ...

How does multicellularity evolve? Scientists who study a family of green algae that includes unicellular Chlamydomonas and multicellular Volvox are beginning to find answers to this question.

"Our unicellular ancestors that also engaged in ... Sex change But the multicellular algae Volvox carteri evolved sexes from a more-primitive, single-celled ancestor, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii ...

"In unicellular organisms like Chlamydomonas, the gametes look the same. In contrast, multicellular organisms, including Volvox, produce eggs and sperm-they are distinctly male and female.