Gonium are small, mobile green algae that live in colonies of 8 to 32 cells. It is an interesting form of society for researchers: they always live in small colonies, but there is no specialization: each cell does exactly the same.
Gonium are small, mobile green algae that live in colonies of 8 to 32 cells. It is an interesting form of society for researchers: they always live in small colonies, but there is no specialization: each cell does exactly the same.
Green builders
Gonium is a phototrophic green algaet hat lives in colonies of 4, 8, 16 or 32 cells. The clump of cells adhere to each other and form a flat plate. All cells have an eye spot with which they perceive light, two flagella and a cup-shaped chloroplast. Each cell is contained within a mucus layer with which it sticks to other cells in the colony. Unlike other colony-forming algae, Gonium cells do not differentiate, that means that each cell looks and does the same.
Living the algae life
Gonium is related to Chlamydomonas algae. This is reflected in their life cycle. Gonium cells grow asexually into colonies. Cell growth and colony growth are independent of cell division. Instead of a cell growing and then dividing into two daughter cells, Gonium undergoes multiple division. This means that the cell divides into several daughter cells. Depending on the size of the cell at that moment, different numbers of daughter cells up to 32 arise. These daughter cells stick together to form a new colony.