Levels of Complexity: Adaptation for Survival

Simple to Complex

Specialization

Procedure: • Form into two teams: one team with

three members and one team with just one member.

• Each team must do the following tasks as quickly as possible: make a paper clip chain, write the alphabet on both sides of one piece of paper and make a paper airplane.

Specialization

• The members of the three-person team must specialize by each person doing one task only.

• The single person “team” must do all three jobs alone.

• This is a race!!

• Predict which team will win and state your reasoning.

What Do You Think?

1. What are some advantages to having each person on the three-person team specialize in doing a different job?

2. Why might efficiency be a factor in the activities done by cells in a multicellular organism?

3. Suppose the life of the multicellular team depended on the ability of one person to make a paper airplane. How would specialization be a disadvantage if that person were not at school?

Levels of Complexity: Organization

For any multicellular organism to survive, different cells must work together. The right type of cell must be in the right place to do the work that needs to be done.

The more advanced an organism is the more work it is able to perform. The more efficient an organism is, the better chance it has for survival.

Five Levels of Complexity1st Level: Cells

• Eukaryotes or single celled organisms

• These organisms carry out life functions and show division of labor among the various organelles.

• Protista are organisms that are in the 1st level of complexity.

2nd Level: Multicellular

• This basic level includes multicellular organisms whose cells specialize for particular functions, such as, getting food.

• Level two is cells doing work separately, not grouped into tissue.

• Sponges and Volvox belong to this group.

3rd Level: Cell-Tissue

• Specialized cells are grouped together and perform their common function as a coordinated unit.

• Jellyfish (Cnidarians) are an example of an organism at the cell-tissue level.

4th Level: Tissue-organ

• Organs are made up of more than one kind of tissue and have a specialized function.

• Flatworms are a good example of this level. They have a heart that is make up of muscle tissue, connective tissue, nerve tissue and epithelial tissue.

5th Level: Organ-organ system

• Organisms at this level are more advanced than the previous organisms.

• Organs work together to perform functions.• Each organ system has a job to do and the

organs are made specifically for the task.• The organ systems must work together and rely

on each other for survival.• Circulatory: heart, veins, arteries

Why, Why, Why!!!

• Levels of Complexity is important because how an organism is “put together” determines where it lives and how it survives.

• The more complex an organism, the better equipped it is to adapt to new and sometimes dangerous events.

For Example

• An organism with a complex nervous system can adapt to changes in the weather: put on a coat, go into a cave, grow their hair long, flap their ears to cool off or just eat, eat, eat to get fat.

Poor Eukaryotes

• If there is a change in their surroundings or environment they don’t have as many “tools” available to adapt and survive with.

• That poor Protista doesn’t like changes in his water temperature, salinity or oxygen levels. He does not adapt well. It is a good thing that he can reproduce asexually: no waiting around and choosing a mate, just copy and split, copy and split….

What do you Think?

• Talk to the multicellular organisms at your table about the animals in your project and how their level of complexity enables them to survive in their native habitat.