Chapter 25.4
What is Osmosis?
 animals regulate their uptake and loss of fluids
 movement of water across a selectively permeable
membrane
 from lower solute concentration to higher solute
concentration
Osmoregulation in animals
 homeostatic control
 gain/loss of water and solutes
Animal cells
 gain of water = swell and burst
 loss of water = shrivel and die
There are 2 kinds of animals when it comes to osmoregulation
 osmoconformers
 osmoregulators
Osmoconformers
 do not gain nor lose water
 solute concentration of their body fluids is equal to that
of seawater
 no challenges when it comes to water balance
 there are other specific solutes (other than salt found in
seawater) that they must actively transport to maintain
homeostasis
 they only do necessary means to maintain homeostasis
when the situation calls for it
Osmoregulators
 solute concentration of their body fluids differ from their
environment
 they must actively regulate water movement
Fresh water fish
 higher solute concentration inside their body than their Land animals
environment
 it must constantly gain water by osmosis through its
body surface and gills
 but as it gains water, they also lose salt in the process
 so it must also actively take in salt (from their food)
through their gills
 disposal of excess water in the form of urine
Seawater fish
 lower solute concentration inside their body than their
environment
 loses water by osmosis across its body surfaces
 but it also gains salt by diffusion and from its food
 balances the water loss by taking in large amounts of
seawater, balances solutes inside its body, pump out
excess salt through the gills
Evolutionary advantages
 insects; tough exoskeletons with waterproof wax, helps
conserve water (barrier to movement of water into or out
of the insect's body)
 humans; outer skin made of water-resistant cells,
minimizes surface water loss
 kidney; conserves water
 land animals; maintain water balance by drinking and
eating moist foods, produce water metabolically through
cellular respiration, loss of water through urine and
feces and across the skin
Chapter 25.
Disposal of nitrogenous wastes
 nitrogenous wastes result from the breakdown of
proteins and nucleic acids
 disposal is through excretion (final homeostatic control
of homeostasis)
Ammonia
 waste product of most aquatic animals
 too toxic to be stored in the body
 highly soluble
 diffuses rapidly across cell membranes
 formed when amino groups (-NH2) are removed from
amino and nucleic acids
 if surrounded by water, ammonia is easily diffused from
the body
 fishes excrete through the gills
 planarians (flat worms) excrete across their whole body
surface
Land animals
 ammonia excretion does not work well with them
 they must convert ammonia to less toxic compounds like
urea or uric acid, safely transported, and stored in the
body
 released by the urinary system
Adult amphibians
 excrete urea
 produced in the vertebrae liver by a metabolic cycle that
combines ammonia with carbon dioxide
 transported to the kidneys by the circulatory system
 can be stored in a concentrated solution, but must be
diluted with water for disposal
 some animals can switch between excreting ammonia
and urea, depending on environmental conditions
 some excrete uric acid
 avoid water loss completely
 relatively nontoxic
 unlike ammonia and urea, it is insoluble in water
 thus, water is not used to dilute it
 excreted as a semisolid paste
 more energy is needed to excrete uric acid
 but this loss is balanced by the great savings of body
water
Reproduction
 urea
 can diffuse out of a shell-less egg
 or carried away from an embryo in the mother's blood
 uric acid
 for shelled eggs (by birds and other reptiles) that are not
permeable to liquids
 precipitates out of a solution and can remain as a
harmless solid thats left behind once the animal hatches