This is due the fact that within the green algal order Chlamydomonadales there are closely related uni- and multicellular species, such as the two-flagellated unicellular model alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and its sister taxon Volvox carteri, the latter being made up of more than 2,000 cells and having a much more complex life cycle on top of that. While the Chlamydomonas genome had already been sequenced, the Volvox genome has now been analyzed by an international team headed by Simon Prochnik of Joint Genome Institute and Jim Umen of Salk Institute (both California).
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