Animals Unit Introduction Notes What are animals?

Name:

Animals are members of the Kingdom Animalia, in the Domain Eukarya. They are eukaryotic, multicellular, lack a cell wall and are heterotrophic (hetero = other, different; trophic = food, feeding). They develop from a single-celled embryo into a multicellular adult. At some stage in their lives they are motile. How can we compare animal phyla? There are some trends of animal anatomy that can be used to classify animal phyla and have been used for creating evolutionary trees. While physical anatomy can be useful for comparing phyla, it is common now for scientists to use genetic information, such as rRNA, to analyse evolutionary relationships. Question: Why do you think genetic information is better for analysing evolutionary relationships?

Question: Why do you think knowing anatomical trends of animal phyla is useful?

1) Level of organization Cellular level the animal has specialized cells for different functions, but these are not organized into tissues. Tissue level specialized cells are grouped together to perform a function. Arises from two germ layers, ectoderm and endoderm. Organ level: specialized tissues form organs. Arises from three germ layers, ectoderm, endoderm and mesoderm. Organ system level organs work together to complete a function. 2) Body symmetry Asymmetry no symmetry Radial symmetry body is organized around a central point and can be divided evenly along several planes. Bilateral symmetry body can be divided evenly along only one plane. Animals with this type of symmetry generally have cephalization and actively move around.

3) Cephalization Cephalization is an evolutionary trend that refers to concentration of sensory structures and nervous tissue toward one end of an animals body. This ultimately results in a head region (cephalo = head). Question: Can you think of an example where having a head would not be advantageous?

4) Presence or absence of a coelom Coelom is from the Greek word for cavity. The coelom is a body cavity that is lined with mesoderm. It can help cushion organs or can act as a hydrostatic skeleton. Animals can be: Acoelomate has no coelom (a = without) Pseudocoelomate has a body cavity that is only partially lined with mesoderm and develops between the mesoderm and endoderm (pseudo = false) Coelomate has a body cavity fully lined with mesoderm

Animal Life Functions Animals must accomplish certain functions in order to survive, and they do this in an incredible variety of ways! 1) Feeding Unlike plants, animals must eat to survive! Some animals are herbivores, others are carnivores. Some use filter feeding to collect food. 2) Respiration Animals consume oxygen and produce carbon dioxide in the process of cellular respiration. As a result, they must respire (breathe) in order to take in and give off these gases. Many of the animals we will look at are small and aquatic, and are able to exchange gases through their skin. Larger animals have organs or organ systems that help them breathe. 3) Internal transport Some small animals can exchange gases and nutrients with their surroundings directly, but many need a circulatory system to move these gases and nutrients around their bodies. Some systems are simple and others are complex. 4) Excretion Excretion is the process of removing cellular waste from the animals body. Small aquatic animals can generally use diffusion for this, but larger animals (such as humans!) require organs to do this function. 5) Sensory In order for animals to sense their environments, they have nerve cells and systems. Nervous systems range from eyespots that simply detect light, to chemosensory organs (detecting scents) to brains of more complex animals. 6) Motility At some stage in their life, most animals can move. While some adult animals, such as sponges, are sessile (attached to the ground and not moving), most can move using muscles. Some have a skeleton and others use water pressure to help them move. 7) Reproduction Animals reproduce in a variety of ways, both sexually and asexually some do both! We will learn about the different types of reproduction as we discuss the animal phyla.