Difference between binary and multiple fission?(5 amrks)

Ans: Binary fission: It involves the longitudinal or transverse splitting of an organism into two equal halves which develop into two separate individuals.

• Binary fission is generally seen in unicellular organisms such as amoeba and paramecium..
• Binary fission can also be observed in multicellular animals like sea anemones and planarians.
• Multiple fission: Multiple fission is the process by which organisms reproduce under unfavourable conditions.Under unfavourable conditions, organism does not stop reproducing but divides rapidly inside a cyst and forms many individuals inside the cyst, when favourable conditions prevail, organism releases multiple individuals at the same time which are formed by multiple fission.
• Multiple fission is the division of mother cell into many daughter cells simultaneously.
• A multinucleate mass is formed with rich cytoplasm which does not undergo division until certain amount of time.
• The specific reason behind the organism reproducing by multiple fission is that, it can divide itself into many cells at the same time inside the cyst during unfavourable conditions in the host