The King lab at Berkeley has pioneered the exploration of the origins of multicellularity by looking at choanoflagellates for shared characteristics and behaviors conserved by evolution in animals. (sciencedaily.com)
These cardinal features of metazoan multicellularity have their origins on the metazoan stem and often are the result of metazoan gene novelties combining with more ancient factors. (nature.com)
But in living choanoflagellates, King believes researchers have a model organism to compare with animals and dissect the roots of animal multicellularity. (sciencedaily.com)