Plants and Animals

Animal and green

Plants and Animals

• Eukaryotic cells are broken into a few categories
• However the main two types of cells that we are concerned with are plants and animals
• We interact with plants and animals more often than other types of cells
• These two cells are similar to each other but very different from prokaryotes

Plants and Animals

• Plants and animal cells have fundamental differences
• The differences between plant and animal cells create the differences in the organisms that we see

Animal Cells

• Lets start with what we are familiar
• Animal cells can be unicellular or multicellular
• They are versatile cells that can move and adapt to new environments

Animal Cells

• Animal cells cannot produce their own food
• Food must come from an outside source
• This means that if animal cells are separated from a food source for an extended period of time, they will die

Animal Cells

• Almost all of the structures of animal cells are in plant cells
• The few exceptions are lysosomes* and centrioles
• Cillia and flagella are much more common in animals than plants

Plant Cells

• A plant cell is a rigid and fixed cell that has a cell wall
• Plant cells can be unicellular or multicellular
• Most plant cells are finely tuned to their environment

Plant Cells

• Most plant cells have the ability to create their own food
• The most common way that plant cells will create their own food is through photosynthesis
• Photosynthesis is the process that entails plants taking in sunlight, water and carbon dioxide and creating sugars and oxygen

Plant Cells

• Plant cells perform photosynthesis in a structure called the chloroplast
• The chloroplast contains the pigments chlorophyll
• Chlorophyll captures light energy that the chloroplast can use to create sugars

Plant Cells

• Plant cells have a few other structures that are not seen in animal cells
• Cell walls surround, protect and support a plant cell
• Made of cellulose
• Plasmodesmata are small openings in that cell wall that allow plants to share resources within an organism

Plant Cells

• A large central vacuole is also a unique feature to a plant
• It provides a storage area for water and aqueous solutions
• It also provides an outward pressure to the cell wall which supports the plant
• The outward pressure is called Turgor pressure