Charting the functional components of the diverse sexual life cycles in diatoms Ghent University
The most productive clade of eukaryotic algae, the diatoms, demonstrate a remarkable life cycle in which an inevitable cell size decline must be counteracted by sexual reproduction, through differentiation into a unique cell type called the auxospore. During the last 190 million years of evolution, a large range of sexual cell types and reproductive strategies have emerged within diatoms. Yet, the genetic programs controlling these life cycle ...