Musa Musleh

AP Biology
Themes and Associated Concepts II
10/16/2010
I. Homeostasis &feedback
• Homeostasis is the state in which chemical and physical
aspects of the internal environment are kept within
ranges suitable for cell activities.
• Three kinds of components interact to
maintain it, receptors, integrators, and
effectors.
• Sensory receptors are cells or cell parts that
detect forms of energy called stimuli.
• The integrator, brain, is a central
command post that pulls together information about
stimuli and issues signals to the muscles and/or glands.
• The muscles and/or glands, which are the effectors, carry out suitable responses to the
stimuli.
• The brain must eventually reverse physiological changes induced by the stimuli,
through signals that cause specific effectors in different body regions to increase or
decrease certain activities.
• When sugar enters the bloodstream, it is detected by the receptors and they send signals
to the integrator. The integrator, the brain, then signals the effectors to secrete enzymes
that absorb the excess sugar, allowing the body to return to its normal condition and
maintain homeostasis.
• Feedback mechanisms are important controls that help keep physical and chemical
aspects of the body within tolerable ranges.
• Negative feedback is when an activity is initiated and changes some condition, until it
is altered enough; then it triggers a response that reverses the change.
• Negative feedback helps keep the core body temperature of chimpanzees, humans, and
other animals near 98.6O regardless of the external temperature.
• Positive feedback is when a chain of events are initiated that intensify a change from
the original condition, and after a limited amount of time, the intensification reverses
the change.
• Positive feedback occurs during child birth when the fetus exerts a pressure on the
uterus, stimulating the production of oxytocin; which causes contractions that exert
pressure on the fetus until it is expelled from the mother’s body.

II. Osmoregulation

• Osmoregulation is when water volume is kept at a suitable level for the body of the
organism, neither too much nor too little.
 Musa Musleh
AP Biology
Themes and Associated Concepts II
10/16/2010
• Fish and amphibians in fresh
water habitats gain water and
lose solutes because they are
hyperosmotic to their
surroundings.
• Water moves into their internal environment by
osmosis. It diffuses across the skin in amphibians.
• Water gain is balanced by excreting large amounts of urine that is hypoosmotic to its
body fluids.
• In both organisms, solutes lost are balanced when additional solutes enter through food,
and when gills and skin cells pump in sodium.
• Saltwater organisms, however, are hypoosmotic to seawater and constantly lose water
through osmosis, and gain salt through diffusion.
• Fish balance the water loss by drinking in large amounts of seawater while its gills, or
in the case of amphibians, its skin, disposes of the solutes and excretes only small
amounts of water.

III. Thermoregulation

• Thermoregulation helps an animal maintain a core temperature that is within the

tolerance range for the body’s enzymes; when heat gains are balanced by heat losses.
• Heat is gained and lost through exchanges of skin and other surfaces through four
processes: radiation, conduction, convection, and evaporation.
• In Radiation, the surface of a warm body emits heat in the form of radiant energy.
• With Conduction, there is a transfer of heat between an animal and another object of
differing temperature that is in direct contact with it.
• In Convection, moving air or water transfers heat through conduction. Heat moves
down a thermal gradient between the body and the air or water next to it.
• With Evaporation, a liquid converts to gaseous form, emitting heat in the process.
Evaporation from the body has a cooling effect, because water molecules that are
escaping carry away some energy with them.
• Animals have morphological, physiological and behavioral adaptations to
environmental temperatures.
• Animals with low metabolic rates and poor insulation absorb and gain heat fast. Their
core temperature is protected mainly through heat gains from the environment, not
through metabolic activities, so they are classified as “ectotherms”. Animals that gain
“heat from the outside”.
• Iguanas bask on warm rocks, allowing their bodies to gain heat through conduction.
They will constantly reposition their bodies to expose the most surface area to the sun’s
infrared radiation, and after the sun sets, they will crawl into crevices or underneath
rocks to keep their metabolic rates from decreasing, and so they are not exposed to
predators.
• When outside temperatures change, an ectotherm must adjust its behavior, called
behavioral temperature regulation.
 Musa Musleh
AP Biology
Themes and Associated Concepts II
10/16/2010
• Endotherms have high metabolic rates that keep them active under a wide temperature
range. Metabolism along with morphological and behavioral controls, contribute to the
core temperature. Most birds and mammals are endotherms.
• To help reduce heat loss, endotherms have characteristics such as fluffed-up feathers,
thick fur, and fat layers. Mammals in colder habitats also tend to be larger than their
counterparts in warmer regions.
• Heterotherms are organisms that maintain a fairly constant core temperature some of
the time, but allow it to shift at other times. Some birds
and mammals are such.

IV. Gas exchange- &CO2/O2 transport

• Gas exchange is the favorable rate of

inward diffusion of oxygen and outward
diffusion of carbon dioxide across a moist
respiratory surface down pressure gradients,
governed according to Fick’s law.
• Each type of gas exerts only part of the total
pressure across the respiratory surface.
• Gas exchange depends on steep partial
pressure gradients between the outside and
inside of the animal’s body. The greater the
surface area of the respiratory surface, the larger the partial pressure gradient, the faster
diffusion will proceed.
• Carbon dioxide from respiring cells diffuses into the blood plasma and then into the red
blood cells, where it is converted to bicarbonate. Carbon dioxide reacts with water to
form carbonic acid, which then dissociates into hydrogen ions and bicarbonate ions.
• The hydrogen ions then attach to a range of sites on hemoglobin and other proteins and
whilst leaving the pH of blood unaltered. The bicarbonate ion diffuses into the plasma.
As blood flows through the lungs, the diffusion of CO2 out of the blood shifts the
chemical equilibrium in favor of the conversation of bicarbonate to CO2.