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Asked by Gala to Carrie, Cedric, Ellen, Rupert on 15 Mar 2017.
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Cedric Tan answered on 15 Mar 2017:
Very good question. I think both plant and animal cells are complex in their own ways. It seems as though the plant cells are more complex because it has more structures like the cell wall and chloroplast as taught in your studies. However, when you continue with Biology after your high school/secondary school, you might learn more the complicated structures in the animal cells, like the lyzosomes which disposes garbage.
The plant cell can also do things that the animal cell can’t. For example, the plant cell can manufacture its own food via photosynthesis with the chloroplast. And it is always more sturdy and provides structural support to the plant. Without the cell wall, the animal cell can thus move around. Hence, I would think that it is not about the animal cell doing more things but the two different cell types do different things. 🙂
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Ellen Williams answered on 15 Mar 2017:
Oh wow, great question! I think it may be to do with the number of cells and also the function. So plant cells are more complex in terms of their cell structure but I would imagine they have far fewer cells than animals and the cells they have need to be able to adapt to environmental change (as on the whole animals can move to another environment but plants would largely be stuck in one place). Animals are able to move around in response to change. Also there are a number of animal cells which are all working together to produce a more complex output.
This could all be complete nonsense though! It is just the only explanation I could think of 🙂
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Carrie Ijichi answered on 15 Mar 2017:
Wow, you’ve really got us all thinking about that one. I don’t know very much about plant biology (my school biology teacher would be so cross with me!) so I’m going to leave this one to Cedric and Ellen because they seem to have this one sussed.
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