1997/03/01 by Graham Bell, Arne Ø. Mooers · 258 citations
Energy · Business, Management and Accounting · #Algal biology and biofuel production #Business Strategy and Innovation #Multicellular organism #Biology #Division of labour #Evolutionary biology #Organism #Division (mathematics) #Range (aeronautics) #Diversity (politics) #Cell size #Taxonomic rank #Ecology #Phylogenetics #Cell division #Zoology #Cell #Taxon #Genetics #Cell biology #Economics
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/j.1095-8312.1997.tb01500.x
published in Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 60(3), 345-363 (Oxford University Press)
openalex publication_date 1997/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/04/21
The diversity of specialized cell types (‘complexity’) is estimated for a wide range of multicellular organisms. Complexity increases with size, independently of phylogeny. This is interpreted in economic terms as the consequence of a greater degree of cooperative division of labour within larger entities. The rate of increase of complexity with size is less in the case of a cooperative division of labour (cell types within bodies) than in the analogous case of a competitive division of labour (species within communities). This is atttributed to the inutility of single specialized cells whose goods must be shared among all the many cells of a large organism. Major groups of organisms differ in complexity at given size: animals are more complex than plants, and phaeophytes are simpler than either.