Has to do with a question posed by my zoology professor.
2006-09-22 10:46:59 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Biology
it is a single celled organism..it may be to do with its surface area 2 volume ratio providing enough oxygen by absorbing through membranes to supply the volume...if the surface area 2 volume ratio was small then it wouldn't able 2 supply enough oxygen to meet the demands of its volume. Not too sure though..just a guess
2006-09-22 10:53:43 · answer #1 · answered by jo88 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Because Amoebas (all cells in fact) transport many-many materials, including oxygen and such waste products as CO2, by diffusion. The rate at which substances can diffuse into a cell depends on its surface area, but the rate at which the cell NEEDS the materials (or needs to get rid of them) depends on its volume. Now take two bodies of the same shape but different size - for the sake of simplicity, these will be two cubes, but the problem is the same for any 3-dimensional shape we try to enlarge. A cube with a 1 cm edge has a volume of 1 cm3 and a surface area of 6 cm2, a surface-area ration of 6. A cube with a 10 cm edge will, however, have a volume of 1000 cm3 but a surface of only 600 cm2. Surface:volume ratios decrease rapidly with enlargement. Cells over a certain size (which I can't determine but experts probably can) simply require too much material, more than they could supply with diffusion. Also, diffusion is a slow process, and the larger the cell, the longer it takes for useful substances to reach the place they're used (which might be right in the centre of the cell), and for dangerous wastes to reach the cell surface. Gigantic Amoebas couldn't stay alive unless they developed some other method of gas transport.
2006-09-22 18:01:08 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
cells use diffusion to transport many chemicals into and from themselves. It would be an incredibly long process for diffusion to push chemicals through a gigantic amoeba, while it works for very small objects, like normal cells
2006-09-22 17:52:00 · answer #3 · answered by Greg G 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
because surface area increases as a square while volume increases as a cube, it's actually the same reason that you don't see very large insects
2006-09-22 17:57:38 · answer #4 · answered by Nick F 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Didn't you see the movie " The Blob " ?
That was a giant amoeba...
2006-09-22 18:46:00 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Simple answer, because there is a limit to how large one cell can be.
2006-09-22 18:21:50 · answer #6 · answered by superc4 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
there are too many reasons to list them all but certainly not the least of which is that if they got too big they would get their a.s.s kicked.
2006-09-22 18:00:13 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋