Unicellular Organisms

1. Overview: This lecture explores the diversity in multicellular organisms. This is a really diverse group of
organisms and the distinctions between them are important. The text devotes many chapters to multicellular
organisms, and even at that it falls short of a comprehensive review of these organisms. In this lecture, I want
to take a different approach and talk about some of the unifying concepts rather than get bogged down in
the specifics of each group. If you continue in Biology, we have a number of courses that focus on
biodiversity in later years. The image on the left is a fluorescent image of a juvenile squid that uses different
colours to distinguish cells and tissues in these animals. On the right is a tree, and in this lecture, we focus on
the top half, and specifically plants, fungi and animals.
2. Learning Objectives: While I hope that you do scan these many chapters for interest, I really want to focus on
some general themes. As we survey these organisms, you will note that they do appear quite different in
appearance. The plants of course photosynthesize, and both fungi and animals are heterotrophs, though only
animals “eat” in the conventional sense. Even within these groups, there is tremendous diversity in form and
function. Unlike unicellular organisms, these multicellular organisms differ in the arrangement of cells into
collections that we call tissues. When we talk about animals specifically, you will note that we solve problems
with physiology and anatomy for the most part. Many of the specific organisms we discuss will reappear
later, but they are also probably familiar for a variety of reasons. I want to walk through the main traits of
each group and talk a bit about their subdivisions, but you could spend a lifetime studying any one of them,
so this is nothing more than a survey to make sure that we are all on the same page.
3. Plants: Origins and Diversity. Plants likely arose from protists closely related to modern green algae. Brown
algae, including diatoms, are only distantly related to red and green algae. Although algae are all protists,
some are multicellular, like kelp, which can grow quite large. If you consider plant’s closest relatives, green
algae, they differ in terms of the complexity. Algae lack organs and tissues, so they have no leaves, stems,
flowers, or roots. Large algae might have extensions that connect them to the ground but these holdfasts are
only structural. As well, algae, even multicellular ones, lack vascularization. There is no xylem or phloem to
move fluids around. Don’t make the mistake of assuming green things in the water are algae, or that algae
only live in the water. There are lots of aquatic plants, like water lilies. These all likely arose from terrestrial
ancestors and reinvaded water. Some algae live on land, forming an symbiosis with fungi to produce lichens.
4. Plants: Origins and Diversity. Not sure how many of you are plant geeks, but many of these groups may be
familiar. Bryophytes are the plants that are simplest in structure. They are generally small and lack any sort of
vascular system, so they are called non-vascular plants. Other plants have some sort of tubular system built
from cells to move fluids throughout the plant. In these vascular plants, the tubes carry water from the root,
and nutrients from the leaves. The system is analogous in many ways to the circulatory systems of animals.
The vascular system also allowed these plants to attain larger sizes. Within vascular plants, you can subdivide
groups the produce seeds from those that reproduce via spores. Amongst the seed plants, there are
gymnosperms and angiosperms.
5. Plants: Seed plants. Seeds have the potential to be incredibly tolerant of desiccation and as a result are
essential for the success of these plants on land, which is often dry, often for years. They also produce small
sexually distinct gametes -pollen and eggs. Upon fertilization, the zygote grows protected within the seed,
relying on onboard stores for early embryonic development. Gymnosperms have seeds that are more or less
naked. Think of pine nuts. Angiosperms have seeds held within some sort of protective layer that we call
fruit. On the left we have a seed from a pine tree (a gymnosperm), and on the right a seed from a maple tree
(an angiosperm). Though they share convergent evolution in terms of the wing that helps with dispersal, you
can see the difference in the fleshiness of the angiosperm seed covering. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to
appreciate how much of our life is based directly or indirectly on plants in general, and angiosperms
specifically. When we talk about animal evolution, so much of the patterns are dominated by evolutionary
trajectories influenced by plants and their evolution. Perhaps the best example of this interdependency is the
 evolution of toxins produce by plants to defend themselves against animal predators. This is the basis of
most of our pharmaceuticals, including anti-cancer drugs.
6. Opisthokonts and the Origins of Fungi and Animals. The genetic relatedness of these different groups
supports an interesting evolutionary history. Fungi and animals are certainly closely related in the grand
scheme of things but they last shared a common ancestor more than a billion years ago. Genetic analysis
reveals the likeliest protist groups from which fungi and animals arose. I introduce these terms only because
you might encounter them at some point. Holozoa refer to choanoflagellates and animals, and holomycota
refers to fungi and their ancestors. The red arrow here points to where fungi took on one of their defining
characteristics: a chitinous cell wall. Each of these organisms can make chitin, but only fungi use it to make a
cell wall. Both fungi and animals are heterotrophic: they obtain their nutrients preformed. Animals have a
specialized tissue for digestion (the gut) whereas fungi just absorb nutrients directly. Animal structural
complexity benefited from the invention of collagen which is essential for building large, complex tissues.
Finally, animals invented the transporter you may know as the sodium pump, but more accurately, Na K
ATPase. This mechanoenzyme was essential for the evolution of nerves and muscles in animals, which you
will learn more about in the physiology lectures.
7. Fungi: Origins and diversity. I should probably mention a few things about fungi. Yeast are probably the most
famous but they are anomalies as one of the few single-celled fungi. Most fungi exist as filaments. Fungi have
structures called hyphae. On one hand they are like the roots of the plants, contributing to nutrient uptake.
In this way, they are also much like an animal digestive tract, secreting enzymes to break down nutrients.
While it is relatively rare for animals to be capable of both sexual and asexual reproduction, this is the norm
in fungi. Spores are produced by asexual reproduction but there is also a phase of sexual reproduction. We
can consider the significance of this in more detail when we talk about animal reproduction. If you look at
Chapter 31 you will note that this life cycle is about the simplest of the versions seen in fungi. In many ways,
their success can be attributed to their ability to reproduce asexually when conditions are stable and switch
to sexual reproduction when conditions change. Chapter 31 also has details about specific groups of fungi, so
Im not going to detail on them here. But I hope that you recognize the tremendous importance of fungi to
your life. Their mutualistic relationships with plants enables plants to survive where they otherwise couldn’t.
Likewise, they are also important symbionts in animals, contributing to the gut microbiome. They are
extremely successful in breaking down complex structures, whether that is in leaf litter of the forest floor or
the lumber that was used to construct your house. They are also widespread pathogens of plants and
animals. I’ve resisted the urge to show you collections of gruesome fungal infections, and instead highlight a
symbiosis with ants. These leaf cutter ants collect leaves and bring them back to feed to fungi that they
cultivate on the ant equivalent of a farm. The ants in turn eat some of the breakdown products from fungal
metabolism.
8. Metazoans: Origins and Diversity. I suspect that I don’t have to tell you what an animal is, and you could all
come up with a reasonable definition. However, what is intriguing is that for each of these traits, there are
exceptions. Not all animals are mobile. Well that’s not quite true. The exceptions would be sponges but even
they move a cm or so a year. Not all animals have nerves and muscles, but even the exceptions- sponges-
have the genes that are needed to build them. Some animals have lost their digestive tracts entirely, and
instead live like a fungus extracting nutrients from the solution around them. Some animals actually have
chloroplasts and use them to capture the energy from light. However, they can’t make their own
chloroplasts, but they can save them from the plants that they eat. Many of these exceptions will come up
again when we talk about digestion.
9. Consequences of Multicellularity: Specialization. Stepping back a bit from the specific groups, I want to talk
a bit about the implications of multicellularity in general terms. The biggest benefit of becoming multicellular
is the ability to create specialized tissues. Single-celled organisms have to do it all, which greatly limits their
scope for doing things like going to university. However, if you can get some cells to specialize in obtaining
nutrients, then this permits other cells to specialize in something like reproduction. When a tissue simplifies
what it is expected to do, it enables it to become better at doing fewer things. This specialization is a
combination of anatomy and physiology. Keep in mind that most cells within an organism are genetically
 identical. Specialization requires an ability to turn genes on and off to enable a cell to alter its fate. In most
cases, these cells become committed to doing that one thing. However, in some cases the organism can
survive physical disruption and the remaining cells can dedifferentiate, reproduce and repair the damage or
even regenerate the whole organism. In unicellular organisms, if the cell dies, that’s it. The survival of that
genome depends on have other clonally identical cells surviving. However, one consequence of
multicellularity is the ability to survive significant organismal damage. Fungi, plants and animals are all able
to kill off parts of their bodies in an effort to minimize damage done to the whole organism. In animals, the
pathway is apoptosis but similar pathways occur in other organisms, though they use different machinery.
Since these organisms have the ability to survive such challenges, it makes sense that each lineage has
evolved robust immune defences of some form that help limit the effects of pathogens and physical damage.
10. Consequences of Multicellularity: Size. Another consequence of multicellularity is the ability to become
large, which has a number of related consequences and effects. We will talk in more specific terms about this
in the next lecture, but in general as organisms get large, they alter how they interact with the environment.
More of their body mass is enclosed within the confines of the body, and this profoundly influences how they
interact with the world. It also affects how they move things around the body, which is why plants and
animals have robust circulatory systems to move material around. The combination of large size and the
formation of tissues creates a challenge for coordination. All cells produce signalling factors, but only
multicellular organism produce “hormones”. You will learn that animals use hormones for essentially all
homeostatic functions, but plants and fungi also produce hormones to permit communication. Greater size,
particularly on land requires anatomical adaptations, often requiring molecular innovation. Animals have
skeletons: endoskeletons of protein and calcium salts or exoskeletons (chitin is most common). Also, their
cells are connected through extracellular matrix macromolecules. Plants have cellulose and connections
between cell walls: rigidity from lignin and turgidity from water vacuoles. Fungi have chitin and connections
between cell walls to help support the organism. Another advantage of large size is the ability to move
greater distances. Unicellular organisms can move in their environment with flagella, cilia and pseudopodia.
However, they can’t really get al that far. Animals in particular can use their bodies to translocate from place
to place. However, even plants and fungi are able to disperse, sending offspring or gametes off into the
world. The largest organisms in the world are actually fungi that extend underground over large areas.
11. Summary. This is the last of the lectures on evolution, and I hope that our brief exploration of the origins and
nature of diversity was informative. I’ve mentioned before not to worry too much about the tremendous
diversity in groups. Instead, focus on the main features of the major groups of organisms and their
relationships. You should be able to apply things like the concepts of phylogenies to novel scenarios. As we
progress into the physiology chapters, we focus on animals, though I will bring in examples from other
groups as contrasts. Finally, many of the concepts that we covered in these lectures will resurface in the
ecology lectures.