Exploring Surface Area/Volume Ratios in Biology



Exploring Surface Area/Volume Ratios in Biology

Introduction

Ratio of the outer surface of a body or structure is proportional to its volume. For a given shape, the surface volume decreases with an increase in size. The surface area and volume is an index often used to describe the conditions under which living cells or organisms work. A higher surface volume ratio indicates that the diffusion is probably not limiting whereas a low ratio indicates that the needs can probably not be appeased only by diffusion.

Relationship between the surface area and volume for various cellular organisms

The needs of animals and their cells are generally proportional to their mass or volume. However, the exchange diffusion is proportional to the surface. For a given form, if you double the volume i.e. doubling the needs, but the surface is increased by about 1.5 times. An increase in size implies that contributions increase less quickly than necessary. A multi cellular organism (or multi cellular) is a living organism composed of many cells that can be differentiated or not. Organisms that can be seen with the naked eye are usually multi cellular. A group of cells that are functionally similar in a multi cellular organism is called tissue.

Possible adaptation to maintain a surface area and volume is relatively high to have a jagged shape, or at least very different from that of a sphere. Indeed, the sphere is the geometric shape that has the lowest ratio of surface area and volume. Only the small protozoa and smaller cells of multi cellular animals have a spherical shape. Similarly, there are different unicellular and multi cellular organisms where the shape and size of cells can influence the survival of the cell or an organism.

Hypothesis

To obtain a relation that helps in analyzing the ability of a cell unicellular or multi cellular through volume and surface area ratio to survive according to their shape and size.

Discussion

The exchange ions, nutrients, gasses and wastes are continuously changing with the environment. The changes almost take place at the surface of the cell and the limit cell growth. The study is designed to use the surface area and volume approach and particularly surface area to volume ratios and their sheer importance in the field of biology. Surface area is basically defined as the sum of the areas of the edges and sides of objects and similarly volume is defined as the space occupied by an object and in this study it is for unicellular and multi cellular cells (Adam Baszkin, 2000). The surface area to volume ratio explains that how much volume a structure has relating to its size and shape. For finding the S / V ratio of the unicellular and multi cellular organisms, their masses were calculated at the in the presence of 0%, 0.5% and 1% NaCl to distinguish between the different size and shapes. The results of all square cut, square whole, rectangle cut and rectangle whole are all varying because of their different sizes.

The S / V change when gets larger, a ...