Why is diffusion insufficient to meet the oxygen requirement of multi cellular organisms like us?
Answers
Answer:
Diffusion is insufficient to meet the oxygen requirement of multicellular organisms like human because all the cells are not direct contact in environment and diffusion is a slow process. Diffusion is too slow to cover the distance between the gas exchange surface and the sites where the oxygen is required. That is why we need a gas transport system - the bloodstream. It would be difficult to allow passive diffusion to transfer oxygen because there would need to be gradients across each and every cell. In the end, it would be too slow and impractical for any multicellular organism to use.
In multicellular organisms like humans, all the body cells are not in direct contact with the surrounding environment . Thus , every cell of the body will not get oxygen as by the process of diffusion from the environment .
Therefore diffusion is insufficient to meet
the oxygen requirements of multicellular
organisms .