I feel like you’re going to have to be more specific, because you already understand what’s different between single-sell and multicell organisms…the number of cells.
Any individual cell in any organism is fully alive…all it needs from the outside world is energy, water, and raw materials.
A single-cell organism can extract that directly from the environment. The whole organism is one cell. Bacteria, algae, yeast all fall in this category.
A bunch of single-cell organisms can group up to make a bigger group but, if it’s really simple, the cells might not be cooperating in any way, they’re just growing in a blob. If you cut them apart, they’re all just fine.
If you get enough cells in a blob they may start to specialize…some cells capture energy, some move water, some extract raw materials. They can mutually survive better by cooperating. Now you have a mutli-cell organism…you can’t just cut it apart and have it live, the cells have evolved to need each other in their specialized roles. Multi-cell organisms covers a *huge* range from just a few cells to us and things bigger than us.
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