A unicellular organism, or a cell, has only its own organelle, to depend upon, for carrying out all the life processes. In case of multicellular organisms, cells are specialized to carry out their own set of functions and all such cell groups combine to give an integrated set of functions that define the organism. A multicellular organism may consist of billions of cells. This division of labor has its own advantages and disadvantages. The specialized...
A unicellular organism, or a cell, has only its own organelle, to depend upon, for carrying out all the life processes. In case of multicellular organisms, cells are specialized to carry out their own set of functions and all such cell groups combine to give an integrated set of functions that define the organism. A multicellular organism may consist of billions of cells. This division of labor has its own advantages and disadvantages. The specialized cells are more efficient and since all the functions and processes need resources and energy, such specialized cells do the job at a fraction of resources, as compared to more generalized cells. Specialized cells can adapt much faster to evolve according to the changes in their own functions, as compared to generalized cells. On the flip side, all the cells are dependent on one another, since they cannot carry out all the functions by themselves. Hence, if one cell group fails, all the other cell groups may fail as well. A networking of cells is also required for coordination of activities between different specialized cell groups and this makes systems, such as, nervous system or cardiovascular system very important.
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