The transition of life from single cells to more complex multicellular forms has occurred at least two dozen times among eukaryotes and is one of the major evolutionary transitions, but the early steps that enabled multicellular life to evolve and thrive remain poorly understood. Volvocine green algae are a taxonomic group that is uniquely suited to investigating the step-wise acquisition of multicellular organization. The multicellular volvocine species Volvox carteri exhibits many hallmarks of complex multicellularity including complete germ–soma division of labor, asymmetric cell divisions, coordinated tissue-level morphogenesis, and dimorphic sexes—none of which have obvious analogs in its closest unicellular relative, the model alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. Here, I summarize some of the key questions and areas of study that are being addressed with Volvox carteri and how increasing genomic information and methodologies for volvocine algae are opening up the entire group as an integrated experimental system for exploring the evolution of multicellularity and more.

中文翻译：

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沃尔沃和火山绿藻。

在真核生物中，从单细胞到更复杂的多细胞形式的生命过渡已经发生了至少十二次，并且是主要的进化过渡之一，但是使多细胞生命得以发展和繁荣的早期步骤仍然知之甚少。Volvocine绿藻是一个分类组，特别适合于调查多细胞组织的逐步获取。多细胞Volvox Carteri物种具有许多复杂的多细胞特征，包括完全的生殖-体细胞分工，不对称的细胞分裂，协调的组织水平形态发生和双态性-没有一个在其最接近的单细胞亲戚中有明显类似物，即模型藻莱茵衣藻。这里，