Biological systems

Lecture 7.2: osmoregulation and excretion:

Osmoregulation:
Homeostasis: maintaining internal environment: e.g. thermoregulation

Osmoregulation: active control of movement of solutes between internal fluids and external
environment

- Balances uptake and loss of water and solutes

- Regulate chemical composition of body fluids (uptake and loss of chemical/fluids)

Osmosis: movement of water from HC to LC

- Permeable cell membrane to water molecules (aquaporins)

- Generally impermeable to charged ions (solutes)  require channels of pumps

Osmolarity: equals solute concentration

 Water moves form hypoosmotic to hyperosmotic  until reach equilibrium

(isosmotic)
- Lower osmolarity hypoosmotic (hypotonic)
- High osmolarity  hyperosmotic (hypertonic)
- Same osmolarity  isosmotic (isotonic)
 Osmolarity of human blood  300 mOsm/L
 Osmolarity of sea water  1,000 mOsm/L

Osmoregulation: two stages

1. Osmo conformer  isosmotic with environment

2. hy  control internal osmolarity independent of external environment

Osmoregulatory challenges of animals

Maine invertebrates:

- Most are Osmo conformers

- Don’t need to control water movement
- Still need to control specific ion concentration
- E.g. Mg+ in sea water is 50mM, but Mg+ in hemolymph of lobster is 9mM

Maine vertebrates:

- Many vertebrates and some invertebrates  osmoregulation

- Ocean is a strongly dehydrating environment (forms challenge)
- Drink seawater  the specifically eliminate salts through gills and kidneys
o ALTHOUGH Sharks do not drink lots of water  high concentration of urea and
TMAO  hyperosmotic, draw in water

Fresh water animals:

- Fresh water (around 0.05% salt), (around 1mOsm/L =low osmolarity compared to blood)
- All fresh water animals are osmoregulation
- Must avoid excess gain of water (by osmosis) and loss of solutes by diffusion
- Drink almost no water, excrete dilute urine (lots of water in urine)
 - Actively uptake salts across gills and diet

Anadromous/catadromous: migrate between fresh and salt water habitats

1. Anadromous: live in sea, spawn in fresh (e.g. salmon)

2. Catadromous: live in fresh, spawn in sea (e.g. eels)

Land animals:

- Dehydrate is a major regulation problem

- Desiccation: extreme dehydration
o Is lethal foe most anaimals
o Humans up to 12%; camels up to 25%
o Anhydrobiosis: Some animals can go into inactive sate and survive
o E.g. tardigrade up to 98%
- Too much salt:
o Albatross on the ocean, drink seawater
o Specialized glands excrete salt  counter current exchange
- Adaptions:
o Physical adaptions e.g. impermeable outer layer to avoid water loss (waxy layers,
shell, dead skin cells)
o Behavioral e.g. nocturnal
- Maintain water via;
o Drinking
o Eating moist foods
o Producing water though cellular respiration

Example: fennec fox adaptions to dessert

- Morphological
o Large ears  dissipate heat
o Thick sandy fur  reflect heat, insulate against cold dessert night, camouflage
o Extra fur on feet soles: insulate against heated sand, better traction
o Kidney adaptation; can survive without free water
- Behavioral
 o Burrowing: shelter against the sun, collects moisture
o Nocturnal: avoid heated day time

Excretion of metabolic waste

- Metabolic processes produce waste, which cannot be used by organism, e.g.
o Cellular respiration produces CO2 and H2O
o Biosynthesis and catabolism produces nitrogen compounds
- Need to eliminate waste  if not it accumulates in tissues
- Most metabolic waste  dissolved in water  excretion tightly liked to osmoregulation

Nitrogenous waste

- Excreted depends on animals evolutionary history and habitat

- Especially water available
- Include:
o Ammonia  fish
 Pros: small molecules, readily lost by
diffusional across membranes
 Cons: toxic even at low concentration,
requires lost of water loss to excrete
(bad for land animals)
o Urea  vertebrates
 Pros:
100,000 x less toxic then NH3
Less water required for
excretion
Can be stored
 Cons:
Genetically expensive to produce
Still requires some water (bad in dessert and for flying)
o Uric acid  insects and birds
 Pros:
Even less toxic then urea
Excreted as a semi-solid paste  almost no water
 Cons:
Energetically very expensive to produce
- Proteins and nucleic acids  broken down into amino acids and nitrogenous bases,
respectively
- Removal of nitrogen containing amino groups -NH2, forms nitrogenous waste

Excretory systems
Functions of excretory system:

1. Filtration:
- Summary: Water and solutes pushed across semi permeable membrane to excretory tube
- Excretory tube collects filtrate from the blood water and solutes are forced by blood
pressure across semipermeable membranes of a cluster of capillaries into the excretory
tubule
2. Reabsorption:
 - Summary: Valuable substances return to body fluids
- Transport epithelium reclaims valuable substances from the filtrate and returns to the boy
fluids
3. Secretion
- Summary: other substances assed to the excretory tubule
- Other substances such as toxins and excess ions are extracted from body fluids and added to
the contents od the excretory tubule
4. Excretion
- Summary: filtrate leaves the body
- Altered filtrate (urine) leaves he system and the body

Excretion in flatworms:

- Flatworms: lack coelom (body cavity), have a system of protonephridia: network of dead end
tables connected to external opening)
- Filtrate collected and emptied into surrounding environment
1. Draw by beating cilia, intertarsal fluid filters thorough the membrane where the cap cell and
tubule cell interlock
2. Filtrate empties into external environment

Excretion in earthworms:

- Metanephridia: excretory organs that collect fluid directly from the coelom and release into
surrounding environment
- Also osmoregulation
o Nitrogenous waste excreted
o Valuable solute reabsorbed
o Lots of water in environment (damp, soil) --< urine is dilute

Excretion insects:

- Insets and arthropods  have Malpighian tubules

- Dead ended tips immersed unto hemolymph open into digestive tract
- Nitrogenous waste (mostly insoluble uric acid) excreted with feces
o Removes nitrogenous waste
o osmoregulatory
- Conserves water

Excretion in vertebrates:

- Specialized organ: kidneys

- Both excretion and osmolarity
- Network of tubules, counter current exchange
- Nitrogenous waste excreted and urea
- Collecting duct curries hyperosmotic urine  bladder
- Except in birds  no bladder  Produce uric acid \

Adaption in vertebrates:

- Desert animals: particularly long loop of Henle  maximize reabsorption

- Live in water: very short loop of Henle e.g. platypus
- Unique adaption  vampire bats
 o Gorge on blood
o Kidneys produce large volume of dilute urine after feed (up to 24% of body mass per
hour)  shed weight
o When back at roost  produces lot of nitrogenous waste (proteins from blood)n
o Kidney produce highly concentrated urine (up to 4600mOsm/L)

Human kidney:

- Around 10 cm long, on left and right side of the body (2)

- Filter 1,000-2,000L of blood/day
- Produce 180L of urine/day
- Excrete around 1.5L of urine/day
- Thus; reabsorb 99% of water
- Kidney disease:
o Kidney stones:
 Cilium slats acuminate and mass forms
 Cause; intake of food rich in oxalate ( beets, nuts, chocolate, etc)
o Renal failure
 Nephrons are damaged (by infection, tumors, shock, toxic compounds, ets)
 Cannot perform regulatory and excretory function
 Requires dialysis  remove waste and excess water from blood