First multicellularity: algae (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, May 10, 2016, 16:55 (3117 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Amoeba can come together and make stalk like structures and spores. Now an algae is found that is unicellular but the cells are held together in a gel and it has slightly differentiated parts:-http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-seaweed-rewrites-the-history-of-green...-QUOTES: "A mysterious deep-ocean seaweed diverged from the rest of the green-plant family around 540 million years ago, developing a large body with a complex structure independently from all other sea or land plants. All of the seaweed's close relatives are unicellular plankton."-“How the cells of the plant communicate with one another remains unknown.”-David's comment: We still don't know the full story but it looks like a beginning for plant multicellularity.-Another important breakthrough. The researchers do not seem to doubt that the cells DO communicate with one another, and if we follow Margulis, this would seem to be the key to evolutionary development: communication between cells.