Volvox are colonial, multicellular organisms. What does this suggest about the origin of plants from unice?

Question

Volvox are colonial, multicellular organisms. What does this suggest about the origin of plants from unicellular algae?

Answer 1

Volvox is indeed multicellular because they are a bunch of unicells forming colonies. But they did not give rise to land plants. Another group called the charophytes did! They are green algae, multicellular and possessing some similarities to land plants. For example, they have sporopollenin on their walls. Sporopollenin are chemicals also found on the walls of sperms of higher plants. Another structure found in both charophytes and land plants is the MLS or multilayered structure which is a bundle of microtubules that anchor the flagella to the cells. Lastly, both groups share very similar DNA profiles attesting to their very close relationship.

Answer 2

For the best answers, search on this site https://shorturl.im/awsNp

It suggests that the "origin" from unicellular algae is a partial solution to the "origin" question. Selecting any plant as an origin for plants is just avoiding the necessity to identify the origin. We can all see that plants come from plants. Volvox IS a justifiable species. It is nowhere near as complicated as a tree might be, or some other plant with many distinct tissue types inside it. Volvox is very simple, but also a very beautiful organism all on its own. It is known to have (what we call) very near relatives that resemble an individual Volvox cell and never divide to form colonies (really the wrong word - a colony implies that many distinct and identifiable individuals are present while a Volvox is usually as genetically uniform as the tree mentioned earlier). So, some of its present-day relatives are unicellular. This doesn't stop unicellularity from being a more primitive state. But a simpler state of planthood is still a plant. The origin of plants is probably better sought in other groupings of organisms, such as the Cyanochloronta (BG algae) which are still plants but also sort of bacteria also. But the ultimate origin? You have two choices: the deity, or some kind of a positive accident with chemicals in a world without life which got formed by accident. I tend to the first of these.

Answer 3

Maybe the unicellular algae began working together in colonies before they became truly multicellular.