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The sizes of organisms on Earth vary greatly and are not always easy to estimate. On the large end, great stands of poplar trees entirely connected by common roots are really a single organism. A variety of influences place an upper limit to the size of organisms. One is the strength of biological materials. Sequoia redwood trees, some of which exceed 90 metres (300 feet), are apparently near the upper limit of height for an organism. The Italian astronomer Galileo calculated in 1638 that a tree taller than roughly 90 metres would buckle under its own weight when displaced slightly from the vertical (for example, by a breeze). Because of the buoyancy of water, large animals such as whales are not presented with such stability problems. Other size-related difficulties arise. The volume of tissues to be nourished increases as the cube of the characteristic length of the organism, but the surface of the gut, which absorbs the ingested food, increases only as the square of the length for a fixed morphology. As an organism’s length is increased, a point of diminishing returns is ultimately reached where nutrition is irreversibly impeded in an animal.

New work on genome sequences, the total amount and quality of all of the genes that make up a live being, permits more accurate assessment of the material basis of the theoretically smallest and simplest extant free-living organisms. The complete DNA sequences of a few extremely small free-living organisms are now known—e.g., Mycoplasma genitalium with its 480 genes. All the molecules necessary for metabolism must be present. The smallest free-living cells include the pleuropneumonia-like organisms (PPLOs). Whereas an amoeba has a mass of 5 × 10⁻⁷ gram (2 × 10⁻⁸ ounce), a PPLO, which cannot be seen without a high-powered electron microscope, weighs 5 × 10⁻¹⁶ gram (2 × 10⁻¹⁵ ounce) and is only about 100 nanometres across. PPLOs grow very slowly. Other, even smaller organisms that grow even more slowly would be extremely difficult to detect. An organism the size of a PPLO that has room for only about a hundred enzymes depends entirely upon the animal tissue in which it lives. A much smaller organism would have room for many fewer enzymes. Its ability to accomplish the functions required for autopoiesis in living systems would be severely compromised. Were there, however, an environment in which all the necessary organic building blocks and such energy sources as ATP were provided “free,” then there might be a functioning organism substantially smaller than a PPLO. The inside of cells provides just such an environment, which explains why infectious agents, such as prions, plasmids, and viruses, may be substantially smaller than PPLOs. But it must be emphasized that viruses and their kin are not, even in principle, autopoietic.

Metabolites and water

The range of organic molecules that organisms, especially microbes, can metabolize is very wide and occasionally includes foods such as formaldehyde or petroleum that seem unlikely from a human point of view. Pseudomonas bacteria are capable of using almost any organic molecule as a source of carbon and energy, provided only that the molecule is at least slightly soluble in water. Microorganisms cannot metabolize plastics, not because of any fundamental chemical prohibitions but probably because plastics have not been part of the environment of microorganisms for very long. A lack of oxygen is thought of as extremely deleterious to life, but this view is anthropocentric. Many bacteria are facultative anaerobes that can take their oxygen or leave it. Many other bacteria and protists are obligate anaerobes that are actually poisoned by oxygen.

Water, which is crucial for life, is the major molecule in all organisms. Unless a massive mineral skeleton is present, the dry matter of most organisms is about one-half carbon by weight. This reflects the fact that all organic molecules are composed of carbon bound at least to hydrogen. Metabolism uses a wide variety of other chemical elements. Amino acids are made of nitrogen and sulfur in addition to carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Nucleic acids are made of phosphorus in addition to hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon. Sodium, potassium, and calcium are used to maintain electrolyte balance and to signal cells. Silicon is used as a structural material in the diatom shell, the radiolarian and heliozoan spicule, and the chrysophyte exoskeleton. Iron plays a fundamental role in the transport of molecular oxygen as part of the hemoglobin molecule. In some ascidians (sea squirts), however, vanadium replaces iron. Ascidian blood also contains unusually large amounts of niobium, titanium, chromium, manganese, molybdenum, and tungsten. The vanadium and niobium compounds in ascidian blood may be adaptations to low oxygen levels. Some bacteria use selenium, tellurium, or even arsenic as electron acceptors. Others produce the fully saturated gas hydrides of carbon, arsenic, phosphorus, or silicon as a metabolic waste. Still others form compounds of carbon with such halogens as chlorine or iodine. Not only the foregoing elements but also copper, zinc, cobalt, and possibly gallium, boron, and scandium perform particular functions in the enzymatic apparatus of particular cells. These elements, both the uncommon ones and those as common as phosphorus, are much more concentrated in living matter than in the environment where the living matter resides. This concentration suggests that such rare chemicals play unique functional roles that other, more abundant elements cannot serve.

Photosensitivity, audiosensitivity, thermosensitivity, chemosensitivity, and magnetosensitivity

Humans use only a limited region of the electromagnetic spectrum, the part called visible light, which extends from 400 to 700 nanometres in wavelength. While plants, algae, photosynthetic bacteria, and most animals are sensitive to this same range of wavelengths, many are sensitive to other wavelengths as well. Many plants present flower patterns visible only in the ultraviolet range at wavelengths below 400 nanometres, where pollinating insects are sensitive. Honeybees use polarized light—which the unaided human eye is unable to detect—for direction finding on partly cloudy days. The “pit” of such pit vipers as the rattlesnake is an infrared (heat) receptor that serves as a direction finder. These reptiles sense the thermal radiation emitted by mammals and birds, their warm-blooded prey. Humans are entirely insensitive to this thermal radiation.

That some animals such as dogs are sensitive to sounds that the human ear cannot detect is obvious to those who use dog whistles. Bats emit and detect sound waves at ultrahigh frequencies, in the vicinity of 100,000 cycles per second, about five times the highest frequency to which the human ear is sensitive. Bats have echolocated their prey by use of these sounds for millions of years before humans invented radar and sonar. The audio receptors of many moths that are prey to bats respond only to the frequencies emitted by the bats. When the bat sounds are heard, the moths take evasive action. Dolphins communicate via a very wide frequency range. They employ a “click” echolocator.

Some species of animals enjoy highly specialized and exotic organs for the detection or transmission of sound. Dolphins and whales use their blowholes rather than their mouths to utter their sounds.

Smell and taste, or some form of detection of specific chemical molecules, are universal. The ultimate in olfactory specialization may be male moths, whose feathery antennae are underlain by splayed microtubules, each of which is covered by a membrane at the distal end. They smell essentially nothing except the epoxide compound called disparlure, the chemical sex attractant discharged by the female. Only 40 molecules per second need impact on the antennae to produce a marked response. One female silkworm moth need release only 10^–8 gram (4 × 10^–10 ounce) of sex attractant per second in order to attract every male silkworm moth within a few kilometres.

Magnetotactic bacteria sense Earth’s magnetic field. North Pole-seeking bacteria swim toward the sediment-water interface as they follow the magnetic lines of force. South Pole-seeking flagellated magnetotactic bacteria do the same in the Southern Hemisphere. Since those studied are microaerophiles—i.e., they require oxygen in lower than ambient concentrations—pole seekers tend to arrive at oxygen-depleted sediment adequate for their continued growth and reproduction. Ultrastructural studies reveal magnetosomes, tiny single-domain crystals of magnetite, an iron oxide mineral sensitive to magnetic fields, or greigite, an iron sulfide mineral, in their cells. The magnetosomes are aligned along the axis of the cell and serve to orient the sensitive bacteria. All the different kinds of magnetotactic bacteria bear magnetosomes in their cells. Whether magnetotaxis is causal in the orientation of homing pigeons, dancing bees on cloudy days, or other instinctively orienting animals is under investigation.

Besides the familiar senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, organisms have a wide variety of other senses (see above Sensory capabilities and awareness). People have inertial orientation systems and accelerometers in the cochlear canal of the ear. The water scorpion (Nepa) has a fathometer sensitive to hydrostatic pressure gradients. Many plants have chemically amplified gravity sensors made of modified chloroplasts. Some green algae use barium sulfate and calcium ion detection systems to sense gravity. Fireflies and squids communicate with their own kind by producing changing patterns of light on their bodies. The nocturnal African freshwater fish Gymnarchus niloticus operates a dipole electrostatic field generator and a sensor to detect the amplitude and frequency of disturbances in turbulent waters.

Sensing with technology

From the foregoing sample of sensibilities, it is clear that a vast repertoire of sensors in living beings confers upon their possessors an awareness of the environment that differs from humanity’s. Humans, however, have an enhanced ability to extend their sensory and intellectual capabilities through the use of instrumentation far beyond those with which they are born.

The sensory system of Earth is expanded by the capabilities of human machines. From those that detect ionizing radiation, wind velocities, the taste of wine, the concentration of salt in solution, a few photons of light in a dark corridor, or the blood temperature of an infant to those that record microearthquakes, a lying smile, or the heat of a furnace, the sensory systems of the biosphere—nonhuman, human, and human-mediated—have augmented over time. Indeed, just as seeing-eye dogs transmit visual information to their blind owners, the sensory system of life extends far beyond any given species of animals and its machines to the entire sensitive biota in this pulsating biosphere. Sensitivity to sound, chemicals, heat, light, mechanical movement, magnetism, and charged particles has been tallied by many a hardworking scientist. Whether entire categories of sensory information are missing from that list is not entirely clear. Great sensitivity to the environment abounds even in those smallest life-forms, the bacteria. Life has been sensing and responding to its environment since its inception more than 3.7 billion to 3.5 billion years ago. Moreover, it is not clear at what point in evolutionary history, or where precisely among organisms, consciousness comes in. Humans are conscious and self-conscious. But are protists that choose certain shapes and sizes of glass beads over others conscious of their decision making? Charles Darwin recognized selection among various male suitors by females as instrumental in the evolution of sexual species, including birds and insects. The extent to which consciousness and choice making are important in evolution remains a matter for debate.