About the Cover

About the Cover
The unicellular biflagellated green alga, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. This mosaic is assembled from figures in articles published in this special issue of Genetics (pp. 3–197) and from photographs of attendees at the International Chlamydomonas meetings held in 2002, 2004, and 2006. Chlamydomonas is ~10 µm in length and has two 12–14 µm flagella (white) at the anterior end that serve both motile and sensory roles. The nucleus (orange) with a large nucleolus (light orange) is positioned near the anterior end of the cell near the contractile vacuoles that regulate water content (light blue). Note also the pair of mitochondria (pink) and several Golgi apparatus (dark blue). A large cup-shaped chloroplast with thylakoid membranes for photosynthesis (green) fills much of the cytoplasm. Within the chloroplast is the eyespot (salmon) that is used for phototaxis and the pyrenoid (yellow-green) that is used for starch storage (original drawing was kindly provided by Lynne Quarmby, Simon Fraser University).