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A twelve-step program for evolving multicellularity and a division of labor
- Source :
- BioEssays. 27:299-310
- Publication Year :
- 2005
- Publisher :
- Wiley, 2005.
-
Abstract
- The volvocine algae provide an unrivalled opportunity to explore details of an evolutionary pathway leading from a unicellular ancestor to multicellular organisms with a division of labor between different cell types. Members of this monophyletic group of green flagellates range in complexity from unicellular Chlamydomonas through a series of extant organisms of intermediate size and complexity to Volvox, a genus of spherical organisms that have thousands of cells and a germ-soma division of labor. It is estimated that these organisms all shared a common ancestor about 50 +/- 20 MYA. Here we outline twelve important ways in which the developmental repertoire of an ancestral unicell similar to modern C. reinhardtii was modified to produce first a small colonial organism like Gonium that was capable of swimming directionally, then a sequence of larger organisms (such as Pandorina, Eudorina and Pleodorina) in which there was an increasing tendency to differentiate two cell types, and eventually Volvox carteri with its complete germ-soma division of labor.
- Subjects :
- Volvocaceae
Ecology
Eukaryota
Pandorina
Pleodorina
Biology
biology.organism_classification
Biological Evolution
General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
Multicellular organism
Eudorina
Volvox
Chlorophyta
Evolutionary biology
Animals
Gonium
Volvox carteri
Cell Division
Chlamydomonas reinhardtii
Phylogeny
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 15211878 and 02659247
- Volume :
- 27
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- BioEssays
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....9f4d3cce483731c728de311b563035f1