Growth
Category : 12th Class
Growth is one of the most important characteristics of living organisms. Growth is defined as a permanent increase in size or weight or volume of an organism or its body parts e.g. kittens grow into cats, pupies grow into dogs and a human baby grows to become adult.
At the molecular level, the growth involves,
(1) Increase in the size of cells due to synthesis of protoplasmic substances like cytoplasm and nucleus.
(2) Addition of non-living aprotoplasmic materials like intercellular matrix, fibres of connective tissue, etc. These are secreted by the cells.
(3) Increase in the number of cells by cell division. It occurs through cell cycle which is formed of interphase and M-phase.
(4) Growth is the result of greater anabolic (synthetic) processes over the catabolic (destructive) processes in an organism.
The process in which reserve food material is utilized and exhibited negative growth is called degrowth.
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