Simple to Complex - Reproduction

But, uh, intelligence! Yeah! And it's in, uh, the genes!

That's not true, actually. We've observed the sponatenous evolution of multicellularity in Chlorella v. in response to predation.

Observed Instances of Speciation

quote:

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5.9.1 Coloniality in Chlorella vulgaris

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Boraas (1983) reported the induction of multicellularity in a strain of Chlorella pyrenoidosa (since reclassified as C. vulgaris) by predation. He was growing the unicellular green alga in the first stage of a two stage continuous culture system as for food for a flagellate predator, Ochromonas sp., that was growing in the second stage. Due to the failure of a pump, flagellates washed back into the first stage. Within five days a colonial form of the Chlorella appeared. It rapidly came to dominate the culture. The colony size ranged from 4 cells to 32 cells. Eventually it stabilized at 8 cells. This colonial form has persisted in culture for about a decade. The new form has been keyed out using a number of algal taxonomic keys. They key out now as being in the genus Coelosphaerium, which is in a different family from Chlorella.

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Boraas, M. E. 1983. Predator induced evolution in chemostat culture. EOS. Transactions of the American Geophysical Union. 64:1102.

No. This was new; the result of selection pressures and mutation. Chlorella in the wild don't do this. It sure is. But thanks to this experiment the distance is just a little shorter.