Q Elaborate on the polymorphic characteristic
characteristics portrayed by cells.
- Organisms are classified as single celled organisms and
multi-celled organisms based on their size. Fossils prove that single celled
organisms have evolved before multicellular organisms, as they are less complex
and utilize a lesser amount of energy. Multicellular organisms require large
amounts of energy, in order to supply energy to a numerous cells. A cell that
uses oxygen produces 20 times more useful energy than a cell that does
not.
- Martin Borass performed an experiment in which he grew
algal cells for a thousand generations, after which a predator was introduced. Masses of algal cells were held together by
proteins and other cellular produced compounds between the 10th and
20th generations. Within
another few tens of generations, the size of the proto-bodies became stable at
8 cells per body. This size was large enough
to prevent the predators from eating the
cell mass and small enough to ensure that all the 8 cells would get sufficient
nutrients. The cells had formed the
first proto-body, for the first time.
- Volvox is a colony of green algal cells, which have begun
specialize, thereby showing traits of polymorphism (when two things doing the
same thing, one can change/evolve and the other can continue the original task).
When a volvox cell is split in half, two smaller cells are produced. However
when a human cell has been split in half the cell can no longer survive without
the presence of other organelles.
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