What Does unicellular organism Mean
Before entering fully into the establishment of the meaning of the term unicellular organism, it is necessary to know the etymological origin of the two words that compose it:
• Organism, which means “organs that shape a living being”, derived from the Greek. And it is the result of the sum of two elements of that language: the noun "organon", which is synonymous with "instrument", and the suffix "-ism", which indicates "activity".
• Unicellular, meanwhile, has its origin in Latin. It means "of a cell" and is made up of two parts: "unus", which is equivalent to "one", and "cellulla", which can be translated as "cell".
Within the context of biology , the group formed by the different organs of a living being is known as an organism . These bodies maintain a series of reciprocal links that are regulated by the laws of nature.
Unicellular , meanwhile, refers to that which is composed of a single cell . It can be said, therefore, that a unicellular organism is made up of just one cell .
If we take into account the totality of living beings that inhabit our planet, most of them are unicellular. All protozoa and bacteria , in fact, are part of this group. It is also important to note that, in their origin, organisms are always unicellular, since they develop from a single cell known as a zygote.
In addition to all the above, it is also worth highlighting these other peculiarities of unicellular organisms:
• The circulation in them is carried out by what is known as cyclosis, which is the movement of the cytoplasm.
• They can basically be found in three different kingdoms: the protoctist kingdom, the mushroom kingdom, and the monera kingdom.
• As a general rule, when talking about lists of unicellular organisms, those that are made establish the following sections: bacteria, fungi, so-called archea, green algae, protists and plankton. The latter in turn is divided into zooplankton and phytoplankton.
• Single-celled algae are considered to be one of the most important living things in the world. And it is that they carry out a very important work at the level of photosynthesis, since they are capable of capturing a large amount of solar energy and, therefore, of producing a high percentage of oxygen.
Organisms with more than one cell are called multicellular . Since they have different specialized cells, they are more complex organisms than unicellular ones. Multicellular organisms have tissues, organs, apparatus, and systems , something that single-celled organisms lack.
It should be noted that, despite this simplicity, unicellular organisms can be divided into two types: eukaryotes and prokaryotes , depending on the type of cell they harbor. Eukaryotic unicellular organisms have a cell that has a real nucleus. Prokaryotes, on the other hand, lack an established cell nucleus, which means that their DNA is distributed throughout the cytoplasm.
It is possible to locate protozoa such as amoebae within the set of eukaryotic unicellular organisms, while bacteria such as salmonella are part of the prokaryotic unicellular organisms.