Algae Fitness and Multicellular Life

By studying colonies of volvocine green algae, astrobiologists have uncovered new clues about how cells gained the ability to differentiate into functional types, a critical step in the evolution of multicellular organisms.

The paper, “Fitness trade-offs and developmental constraints in the evolution of soma: an experimental study in a volvocine alga,” was published in the journalEvolutionary Ecology Research.

This work was supported in part by the NASA Astrobiology Institute.