Part A: Plant Biology

Chapter 26 Pg. 562: Plants and Colonization of Land

Gametophyte: produces gametes

 Archegonium (female) and antheridium (male)

 Gametes
 Gametangia: the tissues that contain the gametes
 Gametophyte: the structure of tissues which produce the gametes

Sporophyte:

Introduction to Plant Kingdom

 All plants defined in this text are multicellular eukaryotes that are photosynthetic
autotrophs (produce own food using organic material)
 Plants have cells walls made of cellulose
 As plants have adapted to the terrestrial environment, from aquatic environment, complex
bodies with extensive specialization have evolved
o Waxy cuticle
o Carbon dioxide and oxygen diffusion through stomata
o The photosynthetic cells contain chloroplasts with chlorophyll a, b, and a variety of
yellow and orange carotenoid pigments
o Carbohydrates are stored in the form of starch, generally in the chloroplasts and
also on other plastids
o Mitosis occurs in all plants, proceeding through the typical phases
 Generalized view of plant production and life cycle:
o Nearly all plants reproduce sexually and most are capable of asexual propagation
o In the life cycle of all plants an alternation of generation occurs, in which a haploid
(n) gametophyte and a diploid (2n) sporophyte take turns producing one another
 Plant diversity
o The greening of the earth
o For more than the first 3 billion years of Earth’s history, the terrestrial surface was
lifeless
o Geochemical evidence suggests that thin coatings of cyanobacteria (blue-green
algae) existed on land about 1.2 billion years ago, but it was only about 500 million
years ago that plants, fungi, and animals joined them ashore
o Evidence suggests that land plants have evolved from aquatic green algae
(charophyceans) as the closest relative of land plants
o There are 4 key traits that land plants share only with charophyceans
 The cells of both land plants and charophyceans have rosette cellulose-
synthesizing complexes – rose-shaped arrays of proteins in the plasma
membrane that synthesizes the cellulose microfibrilis of the cell wall
 Peroxisome enzymes of both land plants and charophyceans contain
enzymes that help minimize the loss of organic products as a result of
photorespiration
 The structure of flagellated sperm in species of land plants that have
flagellated sperm closely resembles those of charophycean sperm
 Formation of phragmoplasts occurs at the end of cell division, similarly
found in charophyceans and land plants
The history of terrestrial adaptation is the key to moder plants
 The first period of evolution was associated with the origins of plants from their aquatic
ancestors

Non-Vascular Plants
 Don’t have xylem and phloem
 Bryophytes

Vascular Plants
 Seedless vascular plants
o Ferns
 Seed vascular plants
o Non-flowering seed vascular plants
o Gymnosperms – pine
 Flowering plants – angiosperms
o Anthophyta
o Monocotyledons – flowering plants that produce seeds with one cotyledon
o Picotyledons – produce seeds with two cotyledons

The History of Terrestrial Adaptations

 Key to modern plants
 The group of green algae known as the charophytes, during the Ordovician period of the
Paleozoic era – around 475 million years ago
 The first terrestrial adaptation included spores toughened by sporopollenin, and jacketed
gametangia that protected gametes and embryos
o Vascular tissues also evolved relatively early in plant history
o Most bryophytes lack vascular tissue (xylem and phloem), but is present in some
 Second major period of plant evolution began with the diversification of vascular plants
during the early Devonian period – about 400 million years ago
o The earliest vascular plants lack seeds, acondition still found in fern plants and a
few groups of seedless vascular plants
 The third major period of plant evolution was the origin of seeds
o A structure that advanced the colonization of land by further protecting plant
embryos from desiccation (dryness) of other hazardous conditions

o The first vascular plants with seeds arose about 350 million years ago near the end
of the Devonian period
o Early seed plants gave rise to many types of Gymnosperms
 The fourth major episode in the evolutionary history of plants was the emergence of
flowering plants, during the early cretaceous period of the Mesozoic era, about 130 million
years ago
o The flower is a complex reproductive structure that bear seeds within a protective
chamber called the ovaries
o The great majority of modern-day plants are flowering plants – angiosperms
(angion = container refers to the ovary, sperma = seed)

Plant Kingdom
  Non-vascular plants – bryophytes
 Bryophytes are represented by three phyla or divisions
o Bryophyta (mosses, most common)
o Hepatophyta (liverworts)
o Anthocerophyta (hornworts)

Bryophyta (mosses)
 The general character of bryophytes and the life cycle of bryophytes are dominated by the
gametophyte stage
 The bryophytes also showed two adaptations that made the first move onto land possible:
o They are covered by a waxy cuticle that helps the body to retain water
o Their gametes developed within gametangia (multi-chambered organs within
jackets of sterile cells)
 The male gametangia known as antheridia produce flagellated sperm – female gametangia
(archegonia) produce one egg
 Since most bryophytes have no vascular tissue to carry water from the soil to the aerial part
of the plants
o As water moves over the surface of the plants, they must imbibe it like a sponge, and
distribute it throughout the plant body

Life cycle of mosses as an example on bryophyte life cycle – page 574 Figure 26.13

Hepatophyta (liverworts)
 The bodies of some are divided into lobes, giving an appearance of a lobed liver
 Some liver warts like Marchantia sp. with flattened gametophytes, some sporophytes are
small with short seta (stalk) with a round sporangium
 Rhizoids
 Thallus

Anthocerophyta (hornworts)
 Small spikes
 Resemble liver worts but are distinguished by their sporophytes, which are elongated
capsules that grow like horns from mat-like gametophytes

 Bryophytes today contain more than 16 000 species – the most ancient fossils were found
about 350 million years ago

Vascular Plants
 Seedless vascular plants
o First development: Sporophyte is dominant, gametophyte is less dominant
o Life cyc;le with dominant sporophyte – among extant vascular plants, the
sporophyte (2n) generation is the largest and more complex in the alternation of
generations, however, the gametophyte becomes more reduced and even more
reduced during the evolution of seed vascular plants
o Second development: Develop xylem and phloem – the two conducting tissues of the
vascular system
 Functioning xylem cells are actually dead cells, and their walls remain to
function as microscopic water pipes
  Walls of the xylem cells are generally liquefied
 Xylem functions in support of walls and water transport
 Phloem is a living tissue of elongated cells arranged into tubes that
distribute sugar, amino acids, and other organic nutrients throughout the
plants
o Third development: leaves – organs that increase the surface area of vascular plants
to capture more solar energy for photosynthesis
 Microphyllous: only have one vascular tissue (single vein)
 Megaphyllous : more advanced leaves, more vascular tissue (highly
branched vascular system)
o Phyla Lycophyta – 3 phyla
 Lycopodium (club mosses/ground pine)
 Evolved during the Devonian period, and became a major part of
landscape during the Carboniferous period (340 million years ago,
lasted to 280 million years ago)
 The giant lycopods became extinct, and the small lycopods survived,
represented by about 1200 species –most belonging to the genera
Lycopodium and Selaginella
 Selaginella (spike mosses)
 Isoetes (quillworts)
o Phylum Pterophyta
 Ferns
 Today ferns are the most widespread of the seedless vascular plants
 About 12 000 species
 Most ferns have leaves commonly called fronds that are compound –
each leaf is divided into several leaflets, a frond grows as its coiled
tip, the fiddlehead, unfurls – these leaves grow directly from
aprostate stem under the soil (rhizome)
 The sporangia of many ferns are arranged in clusters called sori
(sorus – single) – each spore is equipped with spring-like devices
(elators)
 Read life cycle of ferns pg 579
 Equisetum (horsetail)
 Psilotum (whisk fern)
 Seed vascular plants
o Three life-cycle modifications contributed to the success of seed plants as terrestrial
organisms
 The gametophyte of seed plants became even more reduced than in ferns
and other seedless vascular plants
 Pollination replaced swimming as the mechanism for delivering the male
gametes (sperm) to the female gametes (egg)
 Seeds evolved – the zygote of the seeds of plants developed into an embryo
that is packaged along with a food supply within a seed coat
o Gymnosperm includes 4 phyla
 Cycadophyta
 Superficially resemble palms
 Cycads seeds develop on the surface of the reproductive leaves
 Ginkgophyta
  The extant species of this phylum is Ginkgo biloba with fan-like
leaves that turn gold in autumn and is deciduous in autumn
 Ginkgo is the source of a popular medicine that is believed to
improve memory
 Gnetophyta
 Consists of 3 genera: Weluitschia, Gnetum, and Ephedra
 Coniferophyta
 Name comes from the reproductive structure of these plants – the
cone
 Pines, fir, spruce, larches, junipers, cedars, cypresses, and redwood
all belong to the phylum coniferophyta
 Contains about 550 species – dominate vast region of Northern
Hemisphere where the growing season is relatively short
 Nearly all conifers are evergreen – the needle-shaped leaves of the
pines and firs have adapted to dry conditions
 We get most of our lumber and paper pulp from the woods of
conifers
 The life cycle of pine pg 584

Point of Insertion
 If the sepals, petals, and stamen are attached to the receptacle below the ovary
 The ovary is said to be superior, and the flower is called a hypogenous flower
 Perigenous flower: the sepals, petals, and stamen are attached to the margin of a cup-
shaped extension of the receptacle, in this case the ovary is half inferior, and looks as if the
flower parts are attached to the middle of the ovary
 Epigenous flower: the sepals, petals, and stamen grow from the top of the ovary, in this case
the ovary is inferior

Reproduction and Life Cycle of Flowering Plants

 Sexual reproduction involves the formation of the flower, and after fertilization, fruits and
seeds
o Flowering plants exhibit the alternation of generations life cycle in which the
sporophyte (2n) produces the gametophyte (n), and then after fertilization of
gametes (n), sporophytes (2n) are produced
 Asexual reproduction doesn’t involve the formation of flowers, fruit, or seeds
o Instead, vegetative structures like roots, stems, and leaves from offspring

Sexual Life Cycle of Flowering Plants

Formation of the pollen grain (male gametophyte, microsporogenesis) (picture in textbook)
 The spores that give rise to male gametophytes are produced in anthers
 The pollen sac inside each anther holds diploid (2n) microsporocytes (microspore mother
cell)
 Each microsporocyte produces by meiosis four small haploid (n) cells (microspores)
 Each microspore develops a thick cell wall known as the exine
 Inside spore divides again by mitosis to produce generative cells (2 sperm) and a tube cell
 This is a mature pollen grain, which represents the male gametophyte

Formation of the Megaspore (female gametophyte, megasporogenesis)

  Within the ovary, there are the ovules, and in each ovule there is a megaspore mother cell
(megasporoctye)
 A megasporocyte undergoes meiosis, producing four haploid (n) megaspores
 Three of these disintegrate leaving one functional megaspore, whose nucleus divides
mitotically three times until there are eight haploid nuclei
 Inside the embryo sac (picture), these eight cells arrange themselves as follows
 After fertilization, the egg forms the zygote, which forms the embryo, and the integument
forms the seed coat

Pollination
 The transfer of pollen from the anther to the stigma
 Pollination is brought about by wind or with assistance of a particular pollinator such as
animals
 Some pollination is brought about by water
 Some flowers such as garden peas are able to self-fertilize and are called self-compatible
 Many angiosperm species of plants make it difficult or impossible for a flower to fertilize
itself, and are called self-incompatible
o This could be more phologically or genetically

Fertilization
 When pollen grain lands on the stigma of the same species, it germinates, forming a pollen
tube
 The germinated pollen grain contains a tube nucleus and the two sperm (mature male
gametophyte)
 The pollen tube grows as it passes between the cells of the stigma and the style to reach the
microphyle
 Double fertilization
o One sperm nucleus unites with the egg which produces the zygote (now 2n, since
each the sperm and the zygote are n)
o The other sperm unites with the polar nuclei, forming the endosperm nucleus (3n)

Development of the Embryo

 Early division of the zygote produces two parts: the embryo and the lower part, the
suspensor (anchors the embryo and transfers nutrients from the sporophyte plants)
 Soon the cotyledons (seed leaves) can be seen – at this point, the dicot embryo is heart-
shaped – later, it becomes torpedo shaped
o It is possible to distinguish the shoot apex and the root apex
 Monocots differ from the dicot by having only one cotyledon
 Another important difference between a monocot and a dicot is the manner in which the
nutrients are stored
o In a monocot, the cotyledons rarely store food and rather absorb it from the
endosperm to the embryo

Reproduction and Development in Flowering Plants

 Development of embryo
 Seed structure
o From seed to seedling
 o The first step in the germination of many seeds is imbibition, which is the
absorption of water by dry seeds
o The first organ to emerge from the germinating seed is the radicle (embryonic root)
o Next, the shoot tip must break through the soil surface
 In many dicots, a hook forms in the hypocotyl and growth pushes the hook
above ground
o Stimulated by light, the hypocotyl straightens, raising the cotyledons and epicotyl,
the epicotyl now spreads its plumule, the first foliage leaves expand and begin
making food by photosynthesis
o The cotyledons shrivel and fall away from the seedling
 Seed dormancy and germination
o Germination, resumption of the growth of the embryo
o Germination is dependent on many factors, both external and internal
o External factors: water (most important), oxygen, and temperature
 Most mature seeds are extremely dry and their weight is normally only 5-
20% water
 The germination is not possible until the seed imbibes the water required
for metabolic activities
 As the seed imbibes a considerable amount of water, it swells and much
pressure may develop within the seed, which can rupture the seed coat
 During every stage of germination, respiration may be entirely anaerobic,
but as soon as the seed coat ruptures, the seed switches to aerobic
respiration
 Even when the external conditions are favourable, the seeds will sometimes
fail to germinate, and these seeds are said to be dormant
 The two most common causes of dormancy in seeds are: the impermeability
of the seed coat to water and sometimes to oxygen, the physiological
immaturity of the embryo – must undergo a series of enzymatic and
biochemical changes before they will germinate
 These changes are called after ripening
 Dormancy is of great survival value to the plants – some seeds must pass
through the intestines of birds and mammals before they will germinate,
resulting in wider dispersal of the species
 Some desert plant species will germinate only when inhibitors in their seed
coats are leached away by rainfall
 Similarly, other seeds must be cracked mechanically by rushing water in a
gravelly stream bed
 Still other seeds lie dormant until the intense heat of a fire cracks the seed
coat, thus promoting survival of the species in areas swept by fire regularly
 Bean seed (dicot seed)
o If two halves of the bean seed are parted, you can see a rudimentary plant and is
called plumule
o The epicotyle is the portion of the stem above the attachment of the cotyledon and
the hypocotyl is the portion of stem below the attachment of the cotyledon
o The radicle is the part of the embryo that contains the root apical cell and becomes
the first (primary) root of the plant
 Corn kernel (monocot seed)
o The corn kernel is a fruit, and the outer covering is the pericarp
o The bulk of the food storage tissue is in the endosperm
 o The cotyledon doesn’t play a role in storage
o The plumule and radicle are enclosed in a protective sheath called the coleoptile and
coleorhiza, respectively
o The plumule and radicle burst through these coverings when germination occurs

Fruits
 With the development of the ovules into a seed, the ovary and sometimes other portions of
the flower or inflorescence develop into a fruit
 As the ovary develops into a fruit, its wall (pericarp) often thickens and becomes
differentiated into three distinct layers: exocarp (outer layer), mesocarp (middle layer), and
endocarp (inner layer)
 Fruits are generally classified as simple (pea fruit), multiple (raspberry, strawberry), or
aggregate (pineapple), according to the arrangement of the carpels from which they
developed
 Simple fruit develops from one carpel or several united carpels of the same flower
o Most diverse of the three groups and when ripe, they may be soft and fleshy, dry and
woody, or papery
 Dry: dehiscent type – when fruit mature, they are open and seeds disperse
 Indehiscent: when mature, do not open by themselves and require
mechanical force to crack the fruit
o In soft and fleshy, there are 3 main types
 Berry: the inner coat (endocarp) is fleshy – tomatoes, grapes
 Drupe: there are one to several carpels, but each contains a single seed –
peaches, cherries, olives, plums
 Pome: derived from a compound inferior ovary with fleshy portions –
apples, pears
 Aggregate fruit consists of a number of separate carpels of one flower
 Multiple fruit consists of gynoecia of more than one flower – consists of an inflorescence
with many separate ovaries matured and fused on the axis

Asexual Reproduction in Plants (Vegetative Reproduction)

 In asexual reproduction, the offspring are derived from a single parent without genetic
recombination – the result would be a clone that is a genetically identical organism to the
parent
 Asexual reproduction takes place by:
o Fragmentation: the separation of a parent plant into parts that develop into whole
plants – one of the most common modes of asexual reproduction
o Apomixes: an entirely different mechanism of asexual reproduction – there is no
joining of sperm and egg, instead, a diploid cell in the ovule gives rise to an embryo,
and the ovules mature into seeds, which are dispersed by wind (Ex. occurs in
dandelions and in some other species)
 Plants can be propagated asexually using tissue culture***** chapter 36.4

Growth and Development of the Vegetative Plants (Organization of the Plant

Body, Ch. 34)
 The plant body has a hierarch of organ tissues and cells
 Plants like multicellular animals have organs composed of different tissues which are
composed of cells
  The basic morphology of a vascular plant is organized into a root system and a shoot system
(stem and leaves)

The Root System

 Taproot system: in most dicot and gymnosperm plants, consisting of one main vertical root
(taproot) that develops from an embryonic root (root radical) – the taproot gives rise to the
lateral roots
 Fibrous root system: a mat of generally thin roots spreading out below the soil surface, with
no root standing out as the main one, also called adventitious because they arise from the
steam – found in most monocots (mainly grass)
o In most plants, water and mineral absorption occurs primarily near the root tips by
the tiny root hairs – extensions of root epidermal cells

Other Root Modifications

 Prop root: emerge from the stem node to support tall, heavy plants (corn maize)
 Storage root: stores food and water (sweet potatoes)
 Buttress root: aerial roots that looks like buttresses that supports the tall trunk of some
tropical trees (ceiba tree in central America)
 Pneumatophores: also known as air roots, produced by mangroves that inhabit tidal
swamps by projecting above the surface to obtain oxygen

The Stem and its Parts

 Stem: an organ consisting of an alternating system of nodes (the points where leaves
attach), and internodes (stem segment between nodes, distance between them)
 Axillary bud: found in the angle formed by each leaf and the stem that has the potential to
form a lateral branch or flowers

Other Stem Modifications

 Stolon: horizontal stem that grows along the surface and run along the soil coming from
above and below the nodes (strawberry plant)
 Bulb: vertical, underground shoots, mostly of the enlarged bases of leaves that store food
(onion)
 Rhizome: horizontal stem that grows just below the surface, with aerial stems (above soil)
and adventitious roots developed from the nodes (below soil)
 Tuber: enlarged stem specialized for storing food such as potatoes (each eye on a potato is a
node)

Primary and Secondary Growth in Plants

Primary growth
 All plants show primary growth, which increases the length of a plant
 Occurs because of the shoot and apical meristem actively producing new cells
 In a shoot tip there is a protoderm, ground meristem, and procambium
 The apical meristem cells divide and give rise to three types of primary meristematic
tissues, each are specialized and found in the body of the plant
o Dermal tissue: form outer protective covering of the plant (epidermis)
o Ground tissue: fills interior of plant
o Procambium: primary vascular tissue (primary xylem and phloem)

Secondary Growth
  Associated with lateral meristems
o Vascular cambium: produces secondary vascular tissues (secondary xylem and
ploem)
o Cork cambium: produces new bark, including cork cells

Types of Tissues in Plants

Epidermal Tissue
 Cells are closely packed
 The walls of the outer epidermal cells are covered with a waxy cuticle substance
 The epidermal cells contain guard cells, which surround an opening called the stomata
 The root epidermal cells have root hairs to increase the surface area of the root for
absorption of water and minerals
 In older woody plants, the epidermis of the stem is replaced by a cork tissue (bark of the
tree) which is made of dead cells
o New cork cells are produced by the cork cambium

Ground Tissues
 Parenchyma
o Least specialized
o Found in all organs of the plant
o May contain chloroplasts and carry on photosynthesis, or may contain colorless
plastids and function in storage of photosynthesis products
o Parenchyma cells can divide and give rise to more specialized cells – for example,
when roots developed from stem cuttings placed in water
o Cells stay alive at maturity
 Collenchyma
o Similar to parenchyma cells, except they have thicker cells, especially in their
corners between cells
o They often form bundles just beneath the epidermis in the stem and petiole (stem of
leaf), and give flexible support to immature regions of plant bodies – for example,
strands of celery stalks
o Like parenchyma, collenchyma stay alive at maturity
 Sclerenchyma
o Have thick secondary walls, usually impregnated with lignin (organic substance that
makes the walls tough and hard
o Most sclerenchyma cells are non-living at maturity
o Their primary function is support
o Two types of sclerenchyma:
 Sclereids: variable in shape, often branched, short cells, make seed coat,
shells of nuts, and endocarps of some fruits (pits)
 Fibers: generally long, slender cells, commonly occur in bundles, main
function is support
 Vascular Tissue:
o Xylem: water conducting cells
 Two types in xylem (non-living at maturity):
 Tracheids: found in all vascular plants – long cells with tapered ends,
with holes known as pits through which water moves from cell to
cell, hardened with lignin
  Vessel elements: shorter cells, thin walls, less tapered than tracheids,
and perforated from both ends – they align end to end forming long
micropipes, so water flows freely through the vessel elements
o Phloem: sugar conducting cells
 Living at functional maturity
 In seedless vascular plants and gymnosperms, sugar and other organic
nutrients are transported through sieve cells (long, narrow cells)
 In the phloem of endosperms, the nutrients are transported through sieve
tube cells, known as sieve tube members
 Though the sieve tube members are alive, they lack a nucleus, ribosomes,
and distinct vacuoles, but there are non-conducting cells alongside the tube
members called companion cells, which control the activity of the sieve tube
member through plasmodesmata (small channels between cell walls to send
signals)

Primary Growth
 Lengthens roots and shoots
 Produces the primary plant body, in which the root and shoot system is produced by the
apical meristem
 In herbaceous plants, the entire plant is produced through primary growth
 In woody plants or shrubs, in addition to the primary growth, there is secondary growth
which increases the plants through the activity of the vascular cambium and cork cambium
 Primary growth of roots
o The longitudinal section of the root shows the root cap, apical meristem, zone of
elongation, zone of maturation
o Cross section of root in primary growth
 From the epidermis to the stele: epidermis, cortex, endodermis, pericycle,
xylem and in the corners of phloem
 Zone of elongation picture*****

Cross Section of Root in Primary Growth

 Epidermis (including root hairs): a single layer of cells covering the roots – water and
minerals absorbed by plants through the epidermis, and the root hairs greatly increase the
surface area for absorption
 Cortex: the region between the epidermis and the vascular cylinder – the ground tissue of
the cortex, mostly parenchyma, is involved in storage – in some species, the cortex may
include collenchyma, mostly below the epidermis
 Endodermis: the innermost layer of the cortex, endodermal cells are with the suberin band
 Pericycle: beneath the endodermis, a layer of cells, from which the lateral root will develop
 In most dicot roots, the stele or the vascular cylinder forms a solid core of xylem and
phloem – the xylem radiates from the center, with the phloem developing in the wedges
between the spokes
 In many monocot roots, the vascular tissue consists of a central core of parenchyma (pith)
surrounded by alternating rings of xylem and phloem (ex. corn root)

Tissue Organization of the Stem (in primary growth)

 The epidermis covers the stem as a part of the dermal tissue
  In gymnosperms and most eudicots, the stems, the vascular tissue consists of vascular
bundles arranged in a ring – the xylem faces the pith (center) and the phloem faces the
cortex (outward)
 The ground tissue between the epidermis and the vascular bundle forms the cortex, which
mostly consists of parenchyma, but can also include parenchyma in some species, and
collenchyma to give support
 In monocot plants, the vascular bundles are scattered throughout the ground tissue, and
thus we can’t specify the cortex and the pith

The Vascular Cambium and Cork Cambium

 Secondary vascular tissue, secondary growth
 In typical gymnosperms and woody eudicots, the vascular cambium forms a layer between
the primary xylem and the primary phloem – the vascular cambium is a meristematic tissue
that divides to give secondary xylem and phloem
 As secondary growth continues over the years, layers of secondary xylem (wood) and
secondary phloem accumulates
 The xylem cells (tracheids and vessel elements) that develop early in the growth season
(early spring) usually have larger cells known as early wood (spring wood) – the xylem cells
that develop later in the season are smaller cells known as late wood (summer wood)
o This alternation between the early wood and late wood give the appearance of
annual rings
 Cork cambium meristems divides and give the phellem (cork) to the outside, and the
phelloderm (phellogem??) to the inside – all three layers are known as the periderm

Leaves
 The leaf is the main photosynthetic organ of most vascular plants
 A leaf consists of flattened blades and a stalk (petiole) which joins the leaf to the node
 A grass leaf lacks petioles – instead the base of the leaf forms a sheath that envelops the
stem
 The point of attachment of the blade to the stem is the ligule and the auricle
 Dicot leaves show netted or reticulate venation, while monocot leaves show parallel
venation
 Simple leaf: single, consists of the blade and petiole
 Compound leaf: the blade consists of multiple leaflets, and consists of leaflets, rachis, and
the petiole
 Doubly compound leaf: each leaflet is divided into smaller leaflets

Leaf Modification
 Tendrils: form a coil that brings the plant closer to the support (ex. pea plant)
 Spines: like the spines of cacti
 Storage leaves: most succulents have leaves modified for storing water
 Reproductive leaves: the leaves of some succulents produce adventitious plantlets (small
plants) – when they fall from the leaves, they can take the root in the soil and form a new
plant

Leaf Arrangement on the Stem (phyllotaxy)

 Node, internode (space between nodes)
 Alternate: leaves come from every node, alternating sides
 Opposite: leaves come from every node, on both sides of each node
  Whorled arrangement: multiple leaves from each node

Structure of the Leaf

 Variation in the structure of angiosperm leaves are to a great extent related to the habitat,
and are often characterized as the ecological type of plants
o Mesophytes: grow where it is neither too wet nor too dry
o Hydrophytes: plants that grow wholly or partly submerged in water
o Xerophytes: plants that grow in dry or arid habitats
 Such distinctions are not sharp, and the leaves in general exhibit characteristics of the
different ecological types
 Regardless of their shapes and sizes, all leaves are composed of the same tissues
o Epidermis: epidermal cells are similar to those of the stem, are compactly arranged,
and covered by the cuticle
 Stomata may occur on both sides, but are more common on the lower
epidermis
 In submerged plants, they don’t have stomata
 In xerophytes, there is a greater number of stomata, some have sunken
stomata
o Mesophyll: the ground tissue of the leaf, specialized in photosynthesis
 In most plants, mesophyll is differentiated into two layers:
 Palisade parenchyma: cells are columnar with a long axis at a right
angle to the epidermis, exposed to the intercellular spaces
 Spongy parenchyma: irregularly shaped with intercellular spaces
 In some leaves, there is no differentiation between the palisade and spongy
parenchyma (in grasses)
 Commonly, the palisade layer is located on the supper side of the leaf,
however, in xerophytes, the palisade parenchyma often occurs on both sides
o Vascular bundle (vein):
 The mesophyll of the leaf is thoroughly permeated by a system of vascular
bundles or veins
 The venation in dicots is netted or reticulate, and is parallel in monocots
 The veins contain xylem and phloem
 Commonly, the xylem occurs in the upper side of the leaf, and the phloem
occurs on the lower side
 The vascular tissues are rarely exposed to the intercellular space
 The large veins are surrounded by parenchyma cells that contains a few
chloroplasts, and are known as bundle sheaths

Leaf Abscission Zone

 In many plants, the normal separation of the leaf from the stem is known as the process of
abscission and is preceded by certain structure and chemical changes near the base of the
petiole, which results in the formation of an abscission zone
Midterm

Transport in Plants
 Physical forces drive the transport of materials in plants over a range of distances
o Transport of water and solutes by individual cells such as root hairs
 o Short distance transport of substances from cell to cell, at the level of tissues and
organs such as the loading of sugar from photosynthetic leaf cells into the sieve
tubes of phloem
o Long distance transport within the xylem and phloem at the level of the whole plant
 A variety of physical processes are involved in these different types of transport
o Selective permeability of the membrane
o Passive transport
o Active transport
 One important active transport in plant cells is known as the proton pump
which plays a central role in transport across a plant membrane by
hydrolyzing ATP and using it to release energy to pump hydrogen ions (H+)
out of the cells
 Because a proton pump moves positive charges (H+) out of the cell, it
generates a membrane potential, because the inside of the cell becomes
negatively charged relative to the outside
 This membrane potential helps drive K+ ions into the cell
 Because the K+ ions are diffusing down, it is called an electrochemical
gradient
 Accumulation of the K+ ions by this mechanism represent passive transport,
but it is active transport of the H+ ions out of the cell that maintains the
membrane potential and makes it possible for the cell to accumulate the K+
ions
 Aquaporins proteins and water transport
o Until recently, most biologists thought that leakage of water across the lipid bilayer
was enough to account for water fluxes across a membrane
o Research in the 1990’s indicated that water transport across biological membranes
was too specific and too rapid to be explained only by diffusion
o Recently, a selective channel for water movement was found through proteins by
phosphorylation of the aquaporin produced

Note

Stomata Opening and Closing

 The change in turgor pressure that open and close the stomata result primarily from the
reversible absorption and loss of potassium (K+) by the guard cell
 Stomata open when the guard cell actively accumulates potassium ions from the subsidiary
cell or other neighbouring epidermal cells – this uptake of solute decreases the water
potential within the guard cell, causing the cell to become more turgid as water enters by
osmosis
 Stomata closure parallels an exit of K+ ions from guard cells, which leads to osmotic loss of
water – this K+ fluxes as the guard cell membrane are probably coupled to the generation of
membrane potential by proton pumps
 Stomata are generally open during the day and closed at night, but there are three factors
that contribute to stomata opening and closing:
o Light stimulates guard cells to accumulate potassium and become turgid
o Depletion of carbon dioxide within the air spaces of the leaf, which occurs during
photosynthesis in the mesophyll of the leaf
 o Even if one keeps a plant in a dark closet, the stomata will continue their old daily
rhythm of opening and closing – this is known as circadian rhythms, which are
cycles that have intervals of approximately 24 hours

Xerophyte Adaptations that Reduce Transpiration

 Many xerophytes have small, thick leaves that reduce transpiration, by reducing surface
area relative to the leaf volume
 Presence of a thick cuticle gives the leaves a leathery consistency
 Other xerophytes have highly reflective leaves and hairy leaves that trap a boundary layer
of water
 Xerophyte leaves have a concentration of their stomata on the lower epidermis of the
leaves, plus the stomata located in depression (sunken stomata)
 Other xerophytes like cacti store water in the fleshy stems during the rainy season
 Other adaptations found in CAM (Crassulacean Acid Metabolism) plants, which open their
stomata during the night close during the day

Translocation and the Phloem

 The sieve element was discovered by Theodor Harting in 1837 – he suggested that the sieve
element was the principle food-conducting cell in the phloem
o He also discovered that when the bark of a tree is cut deep enough to reach the
active phloem with a sharp knife, a sap will excude from it – however, it wasn’t until
the late 1920s and 30s that the function of the phloem was properly understood
 Imbibition (drinking up): the movement of water molecules into substances such as wood
or gelatin, which swell or increase in volume – as a result of adhesion between them and the
water molecules
 Mass flow: the overall movement of water (or some other liquid) that occurs in response to
differences in the potential energy of water and referred to as the water potential – ex.
water downhill can be converted into chemical energy (water mills) or into electrical
energy by hydroelectric turbines
o The concept of water potential is a useful one because it enables physiologists to
predict the way in which the water will move, under various circumstances

Movement of Substances in the Phloem (loading and unloading of assimilates)

 The pressure flow mechanism
o According to the pressure-flow hypothesis, the assimilates move through the sieve
tubes with the concentration gradient between the source (place where food
substances are available for transport) and the sink (the site that makes use of food
substances, like growing cells or a region for storage)
o If we take a photosynthesizing leaf as the source and a growing root tip as the sink,
the pressure-flow mechanism operates as follows:
 Sugar manufactured in the mesophyll cells is actively secreted or pumped
into the sieve tube of the vein by neighbouring parenchyma cells such as a
companion cell
 This decreases the water potential in the sieve tube, and causes water to
move from the xylem – with the movement of water into the sieve tube, the
sugar is carried passively to the growing root tip, where the sugar is
removed from the sieve tube cell by energy
 This results in increased water potential in the sieve tube cell and eventually
the movement of water out of the tube cell at the sink cells
  Note that the role of the sieve tube is relatively passive, as energy is
expended at the source and the sink
o The pressure flow mechanism is an example of “mass flow” which depends on the
differences in the water potential on either side of the source and sink cells
o These differences in water potential result in osmosis and provide the driving force
for the pressure-flow mechanism

Plant Response to Internal and External Signals (Plant Hormones)

 Plants often respond to external and internal stimuli, with changes in their growth patterns
 Some external factors that regulate growth are light, day length, gravity, and temperature
 Among the principle of internal factors that regulate growth are plant hormones
 A hormone is a chemical messenger produced in small amounts by one part of the body,
that is active in a different part of the body
 Generally, plant hormones are produced by the meristematic regions
 The word “hormone” is derived from a Greek word verb meaning to excite
 There are five classes (sometimes 6) of plant hormones that have been positively identified
o Auxins
o Gibberellins
o Cytokinins
o Abscisic acid
o Ethylene
o Brassinosteroids
 These hormones can have profound effects on the growth and development of the plant
organs
 The reaction to a hormone usually depends not so much on the absolute amount of that
hormone as on its relative concentration compared with other hormones

Growth-Promoting Hormones
 Auxin: the most common naturally occurring auxin is indolaecetic acid (JAA)
o Produced in shoot meristems, young leaves, flowers, and fruits
o Early researchers observed that plants bend toward light, which is a phenomenon
called “phototropism”
o Around 1881, Charles Darwin and his son Francis reported an experiment with
grass and oat seedlings
 If the coleoptile of the seedling was kept intact, the seedling would bend
toward a unidirectional light source, but if the tip of the seedling was cut off
or covered by a black cap, the seedling wouldn’t bend (wouldn’t respond to
light)
 They concluded that some influence is transmitted from the coleoptile tip to
the rest of the shoot
 In further experiments, he cut off the tips of the coleoptile and placed them
on agar, and after an hour, removed the tips and cut the agar into small
blocks (the auxin had diffused into the agar block from the coleoptile)
 When an agar block was placed to one side of a coleoptile without a tip, the
shoot would bend away from that side, though the seedlings were not
exposed to light
o Auxin has been found to affect many other aspects of plant growth
 o Auxin is produced in the terminal bud at the apex of a plant and prevents other buds
from developing and growing for some distance from the apex (apical dominance)
o The apical meristem of the shoot is a major site for auxin production
o The auxin from the shoot apex promotes cell elongation and the growth of the cells
o The unidirectional transport of auxin is known as polar transport, and requires ATP
o Auxin also affects secondary growth by inducing cell division in the vascular
cambium, and differentiation of the secondary xylem
o Auxin also promotes the formation of adventitious roots at the cut
o Developing seeds also synthesize auxin, which promotes the growth of fruits in
many plants
o Auxin is also involved in response of stems to gravity
 Gibberellins
o There are about 80 types of gibberellins that slightly differ from each other
chemically, but the most common one is GA3
o Roots and young leaves are major sites of gibberellin production
o It stimulates the growth of both leaves and stems but has little effect on roots
o It stimulates cell elongation
o In some plants, both hormones (gibberellin and auxin) must be present for fruit to
set
o The most important commercial application is the spraying of Thompson seedless
grapes, in which the hormone causes the grapes to grow larger and further apart
o Many seeds have a high concentration of gibberellins, particularly in the embryo
which signals the seed to break dormancy
o In nature, gibberellins in the seeds are probably the link between the environmental
factors and the metabolic processes to resume the growth of the embryo
 Cytokinins : produced in the root, and reach their target tissues by moving up in the plant’s
xylem sap
o Cytokinins promote cell division by acting in combination with auxin – helps with
cell division and influences cell differentiation
o Cytokinins transported from the root to the shoot counter the action of the auxin by
signaling axillary buds to begin growth (counter the effect of apical dominance by
auxin)
o Cytokinins acts as an anti-agin hormone
 It can retard the aging of some plants by inhibiting protein breakdown by
stimulating RNA and protein synthesis, by mobilizing nutrients from
surrounding tissues
 Because of this, florists use cytokinin spray to keep cut flowers fresh

Growth-Inhibiting Hormones
 Ethylene: ripens fruit by increasing the activity of the enzymes that soften the fruit
o For example, it stimulates the production of cellulose, an enzyme that hydrolyzes
the cellulose of plant cell walls
o Being a gas, it moves freely through the air – for example, a barrel of ripening apples
can induce ripening of a bunch of bananas, even some distance away
o Its presence in the air also retards the growth of plants in general
o It is also associated with a variety of aging processes in plants, especially in the case
of ripening fruits, and leaf abscission
 o A chain reaction occurs during ripening, as the aging cells release more ethylene and
signals ripening, spreading from fruit to fruit
o Ethylene is probably needed for apical dominance to occur
o In germination of seedlings, if the soil is compact, the dicot shoots produce more
ethylene, leading to the thickening of the hook which helps young plants to push up
through the soil
 Abscisic Acid (ABA)
o Also known as a stress hormone because it initiates and maintains seed and bud
dormancy, and brings about the closure of the stomata, when the plant is under
water stress
o Dormancy occurs when a plant organ readies itself for adverse conditions – it is
believed that ABA moves from leaves to vegetative buds in the fall, and thereafter,
these buds are converted to winter buds
o ABA is produced in the terminal buds
o It slows growth, inhibits cell division in the vascular cambium – thus, the hormone
prepares the plant for winter by suspending both primary and secondary growth

Other Hormones in the Plant

 Brassinosteroids: regulate plant growth
 There are dozens of steroid hormones that are classified as Brassinosteroids
 Vital for normal growth in plants
 Stimulate cell division and cell elongation in a wide range of plants
 Concentrated in shoot tips and in developing seeds
 Promote differentiation of vascular tissue and elongation of the pollen tube after the flower
pollinates

Plant Movement
 Three movements due to external stimulus called tropism
o Phototropism: movement in response to light stimulus
o Gravitropism: movement in response to gravity
o Thigmotropism: movement in response to touch

Animal Biology
Animal Kingdom
 Animals are multicellular, heterotrophic eukaryotes, and must take in organic molecules,
mostly done by ingestion
 Animal cells lack cell walls, unlike plants and fungi
 The multicellular bodies of animals are held together by structural proteins – the most
abundant protein being collagen
 Two types of tissues unique to animals and responsible for impulse conduction and
movement are nervous and muscle tissue
 Most animals reproduce sexually with the diploid stage, usually the dominating lifecycle
 In most species, a small flagellated sperm fertilizes a larger, non-motile egg to produce a
zygote
o The zygote undergoes cleavage, a succession of mitotic cell division – during the
development of most animals, cleavage leads to the formation of a multicellular
stage called the blastula, in which in most animals takes the form of a hollow ball
 o Following the blastula stage is the process of gastrulation, where layers of
embryonic tissues that will develop into adult bodies are produced
o The resulting stage is called a gastrula
 The life cycle of many animals include the larval stage
o The larvae is in a sexually immature form, and is morphologically distinct from the
adult stage and may even have a different habitat and eat different food than the
adult, as in the case of a frog and a tadpole
o Animal larvae usually undergoes metamorphosis, which transforms the animal into
an adult

Major Branches of the Animal Kingdom

 Most zoologists agree that the animal kingdom had at least two separate origins from the
Protoctistan ancestors
o Subkingdom Parazoa: means beside the animals
 Includes sponges which are set apart by their anatomical simplicity from all
other animal phyla (phylum Porifera)
 About 9000 species
 Simple, multicellular, mainly marine habitats
 Sponges may be drap (dull), bright green, orange, red, or purple, are usually
slimy to touch, and may have an unpleasant odour
 Vary in size from 1-200 cm in height
 Water enters through the pores and passes through the central cavities or
spongocoel, and flows out through the open end (osculum)
 Water is kept moving by the action of flagellated cells that line the
spongocoel – these collar cells (choanocytes) are equipped with tiny collars
that surround the base of the flagellum
 The body of a sponge consists of two layers of cells are separated by a
gelatinous region (mesohyl), which contains cells called Amoebocytes that
have many functions:
 Take food from choanocytes, digest it, and carry nutrients to other
cells, form tough skeletal fibers
 They are filter feeders
 Respiration and excretion are carried by each individual cell
 They don’t have sensory or nerve cells
 Reproduction can be asexual or sexual
 In asexual reproduction, a small fragment or bud may break free
from the parent and produce a new individual
 In sexual reproduction (most sponges are hermaphroditic (produces
both eggs and sperm)), fertilization occurs in the mesohyl, where the
zygote develops into flagellated swimming larvae that disperse from
the parent
o Subkingdom Eumetazoa
 Details of embryonic development and other evidence tends to support a
theory of an independent origin from sponges
 The Eukmetamoa have been divided into two major branches based on body
symmetry
 Radiata: consists of jellyfish and their relatives – a radial animal has
a top and a bottom, an oral and aboral side, but no front or back, or
left or right
  Bilateria: aniamls with bilateral symmetry have a top and bottom, a
head (anterior), a tail (posterior) end, and a left and right side –
associated with bilateral symmetry is cephalization, an evolutionary
trend toward concentration of sensory equipment on the anterior
end, the end of a traveling animal that is usually first to encounter
food, danger, and other stimuli

Bilateria Branch of Subkingdom Eumetazoa

 In almost all animals of this branch, the embryo becomes triple layered (primary germ
layers)
o Ectoderm: gives rise to the outer covering of the animal
o Endoderm: innermost germ layer that lines the primitive gut (archenteron), gives
rise to the lining of the digestive tract, and its outer pocketing such as the liver and
lungs in vertebrates
o Mesoderm: the germ layer that forms the muscles and most other organs between
the gut and the outer covering of the animal
 Animals with solid bodies (without cavities) between the gut and outer body wall are
acoelomates – sponges, jellyfish, flatworms
 The other phyla of Bilateria have a tube-within-a-tube body plan, with fluid filled cavities,
separating the digestive tract from the outer body wall
 If the cavity isn’t completely lined by mesoderm, they are called pseudocoelons (rotifers,
roundworms)
 If the cavity is completely lined with mesoderm, they are called coelomates
 In the coelomates, phyla can be divided into protostomes (Annelids, Molluska, Arthropods)
and deuterostomes (Echinodermata, Chordates) – based on an evolutionary basis of the
coelom formation and other differences in the embryology

o Phylum Cnidaria – 10 000 species

 All have stinging cells called cindocytes from which they get their name
 The cells of the epidermis that function in defense and capture of prey
 The mouth leads into the digestive cavity (gastrovascular cavity)
 The mouth is the only opening (take in food and egest of waste)
 Has two definite tissue layers: epidermis and gastrodermis (inner)
 Cnidarians have two body shapes:
 Polyp
 Medusa

Classes of Cnidaria
 Hydrozoa (mostly marine)
o Bodies are usually less than 10 (?) cm long, and consists of two layers: the epidermis
and gastrodermis
o The mouth is the only opening and is surrounded by a circlet of tentacles, each one
could be 1.5x longer than the body itself
o Tentacles are composed of an outer epidermis and inner gastrodermis, and may be
hollow or solid
 Scyphozoa (jellyfish)
o Among the jellyfish, the medusa type is the more prominent body form – it is like an
upside-down hydra with a thick viscous mesoglea (gives firmness to the body)
 o In the jellyfish, Cycanea (?), the mesoglea may be more than two meters in diameter,
and have tentacles from 30-100 m long – these orange and blue jellyfish are among
the largest of the invertebrate animals, and are a real danger to swimmers in the
North Atlantic ocean
 Cubozoa (jellyfish)
 Anthozoa (coral)
o The flower animals
o Includes most sea anemones and corals
o Coral animals live in a solitary or colonial form, and secrete a hard external skeleton
of calcium carbonate
o Each polyp generation builds on the skeletal remains of earlier generations to
construct “rocks”, having the shape and colour characteristic of the species

Phylum Ctenophora (combjellies)

 About 100 species, marine
 Largest animal to use cilia for locomotion, with sensory organs which function in
orientation
 The tentacles bear adhesive structures called colloblasts

Phylum Platyhelminthes (flatworms)

Classes of Platyhelminthes:
 Turbellaria: Ex. Dugesia – common name is American planarian
o Free-living (not parasitic), mainly marine flatworms
o Also found in unpolluted ponds and streams all over the world
o Planarians are carnivorous – trap small animals
o The digestive system consists of a single opening (mouth), a pharynx, and a
branched instestine
o Flatworms can survive without food for months, gradually digesting their own
tissues and grow smaller as time passes
o No specialized respiratory or circulatory structures, although some excretions take
place by diffusion
o Excretory system is present – consists of two excretory tubes that extend the length
of the body, and gives off branches called protonephridia – each of these tubules
ends up in flame cells – a collection fo cells equipped with cilia (maintain osmotic
balance between the animals and their surroundings)
o Can reproduce sexually or asexually (hermaphroditic)
 Trematoda (flukes)
o Parasites, but morphologically resemble free-living flatworms
o They differ in having one or more suckers to cling to the host, and that they lack a
ciliated epidermis
o There are two types that are parasitic on humans that go through complicated life
cycles, involving a number of different forms
 Blood flukes, widespread in China, Japan, and Egypt
 Liver flukes, common in China, Japan, and Korea
o Alternation of sexual and asexual generations, and parasitism on one or more
intermediate hosts, like snails and fish
 Monogenea
 Cestodae (tapeworms)
 o More than 1000 species in this class
o Live as parasites in the intestines of every kind of vertebrate, including humans
o Long, flat, ribbon-like animals
o Specialized for their parasitic mode
o Some adaptations include suckers, and hooks or scolex on the head which enable
the parasite to maintain its attachment to the host
o Their body consists of a long chain of segments (proglottids) – each segment is
equipped with male and female organs and can produce up to 100 000 eggs
 Tapeworms have approximately 2000 segments, so they can produce about
600 million eggs per year
o The proglottids farthest from the head contain the ripest eggs – these segments are
shed daily, leaving the host body with the feces

Phylum Nemertea (proboscis worms)

 Small group of animals that is considered an evolutionary landmark because its members
are the simplest animal to possess a definite organ system
 None of them are parasitic – almost all of them are marine, though few live in fresh water
 They have long, narrow bodies, either cylindrical or flattened, and their length ranges from
5-20 cm
 Some are a vivid orange, red, or green, with black or coloured stripes
 The most remarkable organ is the proboscis – it is a long, hollow, muscular tube, which can
be everted (averted?) from the anterior end, for seizing food or for defense – it secretes a
mucous which helps in catching prey
 Their digestive tract is a complete tube with a mouth and an anus
 Another advancement is the separation of the digestive and circulatory functions
 They have red blood cells filled with hemoglobin
 Blood circulates by the movement of the body as there is no heart
 There is a brain at the anterior end of the body – it consists of two groups of nerve cells
(ganglia), connected by a ring of nerves – two nerve cords extend posteriorly from the brain

Phylum Nematoda (roundworms)

 Roundworms are of great ecological importance because of their role as consumers of
organic matter, as they promote nutrient-recycling by enhancing bacterial and fungal
activity in the soil
 The nematode body is pointed at both ends, and covered with a tough cuticle
 Beneath the epidermis is a layer of longitudinal muscles, but no circular muscles present
 Animals have a body cavity, but it is not a true coelom
 Nematodes lack circular muscles to antagonize the action of their longitudinal muscles,
instead the cuticle serves that function (cuticle functions as the circular muscles)
 Ex. Ascaris

Phylum Rotifera (wheel animals)

 Aquatic multicellular microscopic worms, no longer than many protozoans
 Most are less than 0.5 mm long, but few reach up to 3 mm long
 Rotifers have a characteristic crown of cilia on the anterior end, which gives the appearance
of a spinning wheel
 Complete digestive tract, with a mastax (muscular organ used for grinding food)
 Have a bladder and a nervous system
  Are “cell constant”, meaning that each member of a given species is composed of exactly the
same number of cells
 Many populations (species) consist only of females that produce more females from
unfertilized eggs – reproduction called parthenogenesis
 Other species produce two types of eggs that develop by parthenogenesis – one forming
females, and one developing into degenerate males that cannot
------

Phylum Mollusca (snails, slugs, oysters, octopuses, squid)

 More than 100 000 species, ranking second to the arthropods
 Most are marine, few are fresh water
 All have a similar body plan – the body has three main parts
o A muscular foot used for movement
o A visceral mass containing most of the internal organs
o A mantle – a heavy fold of tissue that drapes over the visceral mass, and may secrete
a shell
o A muscular tongue, bearing a rasping organ called a radula for scraping up food
 Most have separate sexes, with gonads (ovaries and testes) located in the visceral mass
 There are seven classes

Class Gastropoda
 Includes snails and their relatives, more than 75 000 species
 Have a well-developed head with tentacles, two simple eyes, usually located on stalks that
extend from the head
 The broad flat foot is used for creeping
 The most unique feature is torsion – twisting of the visceral mass
o During embryonic development, one side of the visceral mass grows faster than the
other, which results in contorting this part of the body by 180˚ and placing it above
the head – this results in a turn of the digestive tract and the anus is near the mouth,
at the head end of the animal

Class Cephalopoda (octopuses and squids)

 Active, predatory, fast moving animals
 Some biologists consider cephalopods as the most advanced of invertebrates
 The octopus has no shell, and the shell of the squid is reduced to a small “pen”
 Food is divided into tentacles – 10 in the squid and 8 in the octopus
 The tentacles surround the central mouth of the large head – cephalopods have large well-
developed eyes that form images
 The tentacles are covered with suckers for seizing and holding the prey
 In addition to a radula, the mouth is equipped with two strong, bony beaks used to kill prey

Phylum Annelida (segmented worms)

 3 classes

Class Oligochaeta (earthworm and its relatives)

 More than 3000 species found exclusively in freshwater habitats
 The common earthworm (Lumbricus terrestris) is about 20 cm long and is divided
 The mouth is located in the first segment, and the anus is located in the last segment
  Its body is protected by a thin film of a transparent cuticle, produced by the cells of the
epidermis
 The body wall contains an outer layer of circular muscle, and an inner layer of longitudinal
muscle
 Each segment except for the first has four pairs of seta with tiny muscles that can move each
seta in and out, and allow it to change directions/angles
 Have an efficient closed circulatory system that contains two main blood vessels that extend
longitudinally
 Gas exchange takes place through the moist skin
 The excretory system consists of paired organs called the metanephridia repeated in almost
every segment
 Waste is removed from the coelomic cavity, partly by beating of the cilia and partly by
contraction of body wall muscles
 The nervous system consists of pairs of cerebral ganglia just above the pharynx in the third
segment, and a subpharyngeal ganglia just below the pharynx in the fourth segment

Class Polychaeta

Class Hirudinea (leeches)

 Blood-sucking parasites, inhabit freshwater
 Most leeches attach themselves to a vertebrate host, bite through the skin, and suck the
blood
 Produce an anticoagulant (hirudin) that is secreted by glands to ensure the leeches get
enough blood
 Most leeches are about 10 cm long
 The medicinal leeches were used by physicians for blood leetings (?) in the 17 th and 18th
centuries
 Leeches have found a place in modern medicine – they can be used to reduce congestion
from bleeding that results from damaged blood vessels

Phylum Arthropoda
 One of the most biologically successful groups of animals
 More than 1 million species so far
 Have paired jointed appendages
 Hard armor-like exoskeleton made of chitin that covers the entire body and appendages
 To grow, an arthropod must occasionally shed its old exoskeleton and secrete a larger one –
a process called molting
 Have a segmented body – in some arthropods, segments may become fused into groups,
known as tagmata
 Have an open circulatory system
 Tune into their environments with well developed sensory organs including eyes, olfactory
receptors for smell, and antennae for touch and smell

Class Arachnida (spiders, scorpions, ticks, mites)

 Garden spider
 Has a two-part body – an anterior cephalothorax and a posterior abdomen
 Four pairs of legs, a pair of poison fangs, and a pair of palps, which are a combination of
sensory and chewing appendages
 Have 8 simple eyes, but no antennae
  At the tip of the abdomen, there are spinnerets capable of extruding a silky filament for web
building
 Gas exchange occurs through book-lungs

Class Crustacea (lobsters, crabs, shrimp, and their relatives)

 Mainly aquatic
 Usually have two pairs of antennae, a pair of mandibles (jaws), and two pairs of paddle-like
appendages
 The body is covered with an exoskeleton made of calcium-impregnated chitin – the general
body plan is segmented
 There is usually a head and thorax, that are usually fused into a cephalothorax, and there is
usually a clearly segmented abdomen

Class Insecta (subphylum Hexapoda, grasshopper)

 The insect body consists of the head, thorax, and abdomen
 They have three pairs of legs that emerge from the adult thorax, and usually two pairs of
wings – one pair of antennae protrude from the head
 The sense organs include simple and compound eyes
 A complete set of mouth parts, adapted for piercing, chewing, sucking, or lapping
 Excretion is accomplished by two slender malpighian tubules, which receive metabolic
waste from the blood, and after concentrating them, discharge them into the intestine
 Sexes are separate, and fertilization takes place internally
 Some show four distinct stages in the life cycle: egg  larvae  pupa  adult
 Certain species of bees, ants, and termites exist as colonies o r societies, made up of several
different types of individuals, each adapted to a particular function – some insect societies
communicate with others by “dances” and by chemical pheromones

Phylum Echinodermata
 One special feature is their water-vascular system, which can be used as a hydraulic pump
to extend the soft extensible tube feet, which have muscular contractibility and carry
terminal suckers

Class Echinoidea (sea urchins)

Class Holothuroidea (sea cucumbers)

Class Crinoidea (sea lilies)

Class Asteroidea (sea star)

 Body consists of a central disc from which it radiates 5-20 or more arms or rays
 In the center of the underside of the disk, there is a mouth
 The endoskeleton consists of a series of calcareous plates that permit some movement in
the arms
 Around the base of the delicate skin are the gills used in gas exchange, and tiny pioneer-like
spines (pedicellariae) which are operated by muscles – these keep the surface free of debris
 Under the surface of each arm, there are hundreds of pairs of tube feet
  The cavities of the tube feet are all connected by a radial canal in the arm, those in turn are
connected by a circular canal in the central disk
 The circular canal is connected by an axial stone canal to a button-shaped plate called the
madreporite – as many as 250 tiny pores in the madreporite permit sea water to enter the
water vascular system

Phylum Chordata
 In addition to the characteristics they share with Echinodermata, they have a number of
features uniquely their own
 Every chordate has a notochord at some stage of individual development – although it is a
temporary embryological organ in most species
 A tubular nerve cord runs the length of the body near the dorsal surface and is enlarged and
complicated at the head end into the brain
 Gill slits are openings in the region of the pharynx that lead from the internal alimentary
canal to the outside of the animal
 Gill slits function in respiration in fish, but they’re closed early in embryological
development in all breathing vertebrates
 A tail extending beyond the anus is always present at some stage of development, even
though it may be absorbed or overgrown in animals such as humans and frogs

Chordates Without Backbones

Subphylum Urochordata (tunicates)
 Adult sea squirts are barrel-shaped sessile marine animals
 Adult tunicates develop thick tunics composed of cellulose
 The tunics have two openings – the incurrent siphon through which the water and food
enter, and the excurrent siphon through which water, waste, and gametes pass to the
outside
 Filter feeders

Subphylum Cephalochordata (lancelets)

 Small, translucent fish-like segmented animals
 5-10 cm long, pointed at both ends
 All three chordate characteristics are highly developed in lancelets
 Cephalochordates are known as lancelets because of it’s blade-like shape, and closely
resembles the idealized chordate

Chordates With Backbones

Subphylum Vertebrata
 In addition to the chordate features, vertebrates show a number of their own characteristics
 They have a special kind of covering (skin), consisting of at least two layers – ectoderm and
mesoderm, with capacity to form a number of accessory parts: hair, nails, claws, hooves,
feathers, and scales
 There is a spinal column of vertebrae, from which the entire subphylum takes its name, and
that column has two pairs of bone supported appendages
 Closed circulatory system – the ventral heart pumps red blood throughout the body
 A pair of kidneys remove waste from the blood
 The brain at the head end is encased in some kind of skull
 An endocrine glandular system is distributed throughout the body helps regulate
physiology and behaviour by means of hormones
  A typical body has a head, trunk, and tail, and usually fore and hind appendages, and
sometimes a neck
 Sexes are usually separate

New
The Animal Tissues
 A tissue consists of a few types of closely associated cells that are adapted to carry out
specific functions
 Animal tissues may be classified into epithelial, connective, muscular, and nervous tissues
 Each kind of tissue is composed of cells with characteristics size, shape, and arrangement

Epithelial Tissue (epithelium)

 Consists of cells fitted tightly together, forming a continuous layer or sheet of cells covering
a body surface or lining a cavity within the body
 Epithelial tissues function in protection, absorption, secretion, or sensation
 The tissues lining the digestive tract absorb nutrients into glands, adapted for secretion of
cell products
 Examples: the outer layer of the skin, digestive and respiratory tract, and kidney tubules
 There are 3 types of epithelial cells that can be distinguished on the basis of their shape
o Squamous: thin, flattened cells shaped like pancakes or flag stones
o Cuboidal: short cylinders that are cube-shaped resembling a dice from an inside
view – each cell has a complex shape, usually that of an eight sided polyhedron
o Columnar: look like tiny columns or cylinders when viewed from the side – the
nucleus is usually located near the base of the cell
 Epithelial cells may be:
o Simple: composed only of one layer of cells – usually located in areas where
materials must diffuse through the tissue, or where substances are secreted,
excreted, or absorbed
o Stratified: composed of two or more layers of cells – stratified squamous cells are
found in the skin and lining of the mouth and esophagus of humans and other
vertebrates
o Pseudostratified: cells falsely appear to be layered – for example, the respiratory
passageways are lined with this type of tissue, equipped with cilia
o The lining of the body cavities and blood and lymph vessels are derivatives of
mesenchyma – these are typical epithelial cells, just to distinguish them from the
true epithelia
 The lining of the blood and lymph vessels: endothelium

Connective Tissues
 Main function is to join the other tissues of the body together, to support the body and its
structure, and to protect the underlying organs – almost every organ in the body has a
supporting framework of connective tissues called stroma
 The main types of connective tissues are:
o Loose (areolar tissue): most widely distributed connective tissue in the body
 It is found between the body parts and serve as a reservoir for fluid and salt
 Nerves, blood vessels, and muscles are wrapped in this tissue
 Together with adipose tissue, loose connective tissue form the subcutaneous
layer, that attaches the skin to the muscles and other structures beneath
o Dense: very strong – collagen fibers predominate
  Found in lower layer of the skin
 In irregular dense connective tissue, the collagen fibers are arranged in
bundles distributed in all directions through the tissue
 In regular dense connective tissue, the collagen fibers are arranged in a
definite pattern, making the tissue greatly resistant to stress – for example,
tendons, the cable-like cords that connect muscle to bones, consist of this
type of tissue
o Elastic: consist mainly of bundles of parallel elastic fibers
 Found in ligaments (bands of tissue that connect bones to one another) that
must expand and then return to their original size
o Reticular: mainly composed of interlacing reticulate fibers
 It forms a supporting stroma in many organs such as the liver, spleen, and
lymph nodes
o Adipose: rich in fat cells, which store fat and release it when fuel is needed for
cellular respiration
 Found in the subcutaneous layer and in tissues that cushions internal organs
o Cartilage: supporting skeleton in the embryonic layers of stages in all vertebrates,
but it is largely replaced in the adults by bones in all, but the strands and rays
 Firm yet elastic
 Cartilage cells called chondrocytes secrete this hard rubbery matrix around
themselves, and also secretes collagen fibers, which become embedded in
the matrix
 Chondrocytes eventually come to lie singly or in groups of two or four in the
small cavity called lacunae
 Cartilage tissues lack nerves, lymph vessels, and blood vessels –
chondrocytes are nourished by the diffusion of nutrients and oxygen
through the matrix
o Bones: major skeletal tissues in vertebrates
 Highly vascular tissue with a substantial blood supply
 Bone cells called osteocytes communicate with one another with capillaries
by tiny channels, known as canaliculi (fine extensions of the cells
themselves)
 The capillaries, as well as nerves, run through central microscopic channels
known as haversian canals’
o Blood and lymph tissues that produce blood cells
 Connective tissues contain relatively few cells embedded in an extensive intercellular
substance, consisting of threadlike microscopic fibers scattered throughout a matrix
secreted by the cells
-----
Connective Tissues
Blood
 In mammals, blood is composed of red and white cells and platelets, suspended within
plasma (the liquid, non-cellular part of the blood)
 Plasma transports many kinds of substances from one part of the body to another
 Most biologists classify blood with connective tissues

Muscle Tissue
 The movement of most animals result from the contraction of the elongated, cylindrical, or
spindle-shaped cells of muscle tissue
  Each muscle is usually referred to as a fiber because of its length, and contains many small
longitudinal parallel contractive fibers called myofibrils – the protein myosin and actin are
the chief components of myofibrils
 There are 3 types of muscle tissues found in vertebrates:
o Cardiac muscle: muscle present in the wall of the heart
o Smooth muscle (visceral muscles)
 Found in the wall of the digestive tract, uterus, blood vessels, and certain
other internal organs
o Skeletal muscles: make up the large muscles masses attached to bones
 Skeletal muscle fibers are among the exception of the rule: in term each
skeletal muscle fiber has many nuclei
 By light microscopy, both skeletal and cardiac fibers have alternate light and
dark transverse stripes (striated muscle) – these microscopic stripes are
involved in the contraction process, because they change their relative size
during contraction. The dark stripes remain essentially constant, but the
light stripes decrease in width
 Striated muscle fiber must relax and rest momentarily before it can contract
again

Nervous Tissue
 Composed of neurons (cells specialized for conducting electrochemical nerve impulses),
and glial cells (support and nourish the neurons)
 Certain neurons receive signals from the external or internal environment and transmit
them to the spinal cord and brain
 Other nerve cells process and store the information
 This is the cellular basis for the complex functions of consciousness, memory, thoughts, and
direct movements
 Neurons come in many shapes and sizes, but typically each has an enlarged cell body
containing the nucleus, and from which two kinds of thin, hair-like extensions project
o Dendrites: fibers specialized for receiving impulses from environmental stiluli or
from another cell
o The single axon: specialized to conduct impulses away from the cell body
 Axons are usually long and smooth, but may give off an occasional branch –
they typically end in a group of fine branches
 Axons range in length from 1 or 2 millimeters to more than a meter – those
extending from the spinal cord down the arm or leg in humans may be a
meter or more in length
 Neurons communicate at junctions called synapses, thus they are functionally connected
and can pass impulses for long distances through the body
 A nerve consists of many fibers found together by connective tissues

Circulatory System
Open System
 The blood is not always contained within the blood vessels
 The heart pumps blood into vessels, which then empty either into a body cavity where it
bathes (?) the internal organs, or into sinuses located within the organs
 In an open circulatory system, the blood ebbs and flows in a sluggish manner
o Ex. grasshopper
Closed System
 The blood is always contained within blood vessels

Human Circulation
 Every cell requires a supply of oxygen and nutrient molecules, and must rid off itself of
waste molecules
 Blood flows away from the heart through arteries and arterioles to capillary networks,
where exchanges between blood and tissue fluid takes place
 Blood leaves the capillaries and returns to the heart through venules and veins
 Like other mammals, humans have both pulmonary and systematic circulatory pathways
 Humans also have a typically mammalian four chambered heart with right and left atria,
and right and left ventricles

 ***read about heart structure from text figure 40.9 page 973 (flow of blood through heart)

Blood Pathway
 All blood entering the right atrium of the heart is deoxygenated
 Blood passes from the right atrium to the right ventricle, which is then pumped out through
the pulmonary trunk
 The pulmonary trunk branches into the two pulmonary arteries that carry blood to
arterioles and capillaries in the lungs
------

The Human Digestive System

 Blood pathway: after passing through lung capillaries located around the alveoli, the blood
returns to the left atrium of the heart through the pulmonary venules and veins

Systemic System:
 Blood returning from the pulmonary circulation is oxygenated. This blood passed from the
left atrium to the left ventricle, which then pumps it out through the aorta, the large arterial
truck that supplies the entire systemic circulation
 The aorta sends branches to all parts of the body. The first branch is to the coronary arteries
that are apart of coronary circulation system for the heart. Heart cells do not exchange
material with the blood, being pumped through the chambers. Therefore the blood flows
through the coronary arteries is a critical for normal function of the heart. Blockage of any
coronary artery could quickly result in heart attack. With resultant damaged heart muscle
and impaired heart function.
 Anterior to the heart, the aorta arches to the left and then passes posteriorly through the
body
 Branches off the arch of the aorta supply blood to the upper part of the body
 As the aorta descends through the abdominal cavity, branches are given off to the digestive
organs and also the kidneys, also the body wall, the legs, and other posterior parts
 Blood returns from systemic circulation to the right atrium of the heart, by the way of two
large veins the anterior (superior) Vena cava, and the posterior (inferior) Vena cava
 The anterior vena cava returns the blood from the head, arms and chest.
 The posterior vena cava returns blood from the remainder of the systemic circulation

A Portal System
 One that begins and ends in capillaries. The human body has only one such major systems
the hepatic portal system
 In this system, the first set of capillaries occurs at the digestive organs and the second
occurs in the liver
 Blood passes from the capillaries about the digestive organs
 Into venules that join a major vein that takes the products of digestion to the liver
 Here these products may be processed or stored until they are needed to maintain the
constancy of blood composition within the hepatic vein and vessels to enter the vena cava

Human blood
 There are three types
o Red (erythrocytes) 
o White (leukocytes)
o Platelets (thermocytes)
 Red blood cells are so small that a mm3 of blood contain 5 000,000 of them, each is
packed with hemoglobin, thus there is no room for cellular organelles or nucleolus

 Hemoglobin that is not carrying O2, is called reduced hemoglobin (darker, purple)
 Red blood cells are manufactured in the bone marrow at the rate of two million
cells/second. They live about four months, after which they tend to become damaged
from squeezing through small capillaries. Damaged red blood cells are withdrawn from
the circulation and the blood passes through the liver or spleen. The red blood cells are
destroyed and hemoglobin is released.
 The iron is recovered and returned to the bone marrow for reuse. The heme portion of
the molecules undergo chemical degradation and are excreted by the liver as a bile
pigment
 The bile pigments are primarily responsible for the colour of feces
 White blood cells can be distinguished microscopically from red blood cells because
they are mutually larger, have a nucleus, and without staining they appear white in
colour, with staining, white blood cells appear bluish and may have granules that may
bind with certain stain
 The white blood cells with granules called granulocytes, has lobed nucleus and its of
three types
o Neutrophilis - have granules that do not take a adye 
o Eosinophils – granules that take up the red dye Eosin 
o Basiophils – granules that take a basic dye
 Granulocytes (white blood cells have no granules) have a circular or dented nucleus,
there are two types – the larger is called monocytes, and the smaller is called
lymphocytes

Mouth
 Humans are omnivorous; they feed on both plant and animals. Therefore human
dentation is not specialized and able to deal adequately with both.

 An adult human has 32 teeth, one half of the jaw has four different types of teeth
o Two chisel shaped incisors for biting
o One pointed Canine for tearing
 o Two premolars for grinding
o Three molars for crushing
o The last molar known as the wisdom may fail to erupt, sometimes is pronounced
as useless
o There are three pairs of salivary glands used to secrete saliva into the mouth,
where it mixes and moistens then food, which contain or compose
carbohydrates, proteins, and fats
o Saliva contains an enzyme known as salivary amylase, that begins the process of
starch digestion by hydrolyzing some of the bonds between the glucose units
that makes up the starch
o The disaccharide maltose is a typical end product of salivary digestion

Pharynx and esophagus 

 The digestive and respiratory passage way diverge in the pharynx

 Normally swallowing involves a set of reflexes, that closes the opening into the trachea,
a flap of tissue the epiglottis covers the opening into the trachea as muscle moves the
food mass through the pharynx into the esophagus; a tubular structure that takes the
food to the stomach

Stomach
 Stores up to 2 liters of partially digested food and sometimes even more
 The muscular wall of the stomach contracts vigorously and mixes food with juices that are
secreted whenever food enters the stomach
 The gastric juice contains HCl and substances active in digestion (Pepsin) – the gastric juices
are produced independently of the protective mucous secretion of the stomach
 The gastric juices secreted by the stomach make the pH about 2.0 – such high acidity is
usually sufficient to kill bacteria and other microorganisms that might be in the food
 This low pH also stops the activity of salivary amylase (which functions optimally at the
near neutral pH), but this acidity promotes the activity of Pepsin in hydrolytic enzymes that
act on proteins to produce peptides
 A coating of mucous secreted by the epithelial cells helps to protect the stomach lining from
being digested, still the epithelium constantly erodes and mitosis generates enough cells to
completely replace the stomach lining every three days
 About every 20 seconds, the stomach contents are mixed by the churning action of the
smooth muscles
 As a result of mixing and enzyme actions, the recently swallowed meal becomes a nutrient
broth known as acid chyme
 Much of the time, the stomach is closed off at either end
 The opening from the esophagus to the stomach is the cardiac orifice, which opens
intermittently with each wave of peristalsis that deliver a bolus
 The opening from the stomach to the small intestine is the pyloric sphincter, which helps
regulate the passage of chyme into the small intestine
 A squirt at a time, it takes about 2-6 hours after a meal for the stomach to empty

Small Intestine
  Although limited digestion of starch takes place in the mouth, and a partial digestion of
protein by pepsin in the stomach, most enzymatic hydrolysis of the macromolecules in food
occurs in the small intestine
 More than 6 meters in length
 Longest section of the alimentary canal
 It is the major organ of digestion and is responsible for the absorption of nutrients into the
blood

Digestive Accessory Organs and Their Regulations

 Pancreas: produces an assortment of hydrolytic enzymes, as well as an alkaline solution
rich in bicarbonate as a buffer to offset the acidity of chyme from the stomach
 Liver: performs a wide variety of important functions in the body, including sorting certain
nutrients, detoxifying various poisons and drugs, and converting many metabolic
intermediates from one form to another
o A major digestive responsibility of the liver is the production of bile, a mixture of
substances that is stored in the gallbladder until needed
o Bile contains no digestive enzymes, but it does contain bile salts, which aid in the
digestion and absorption of fats
 The first 25 cm or so of the small intestine is called the duodenum, and it is here that chyme
seeping in from the stomach mixes with digestive juices secreted by the pancreas, liver, and
gallbladder, and gland cells of the intestinal wall itself
 The digestive starch that was initiated by salivary amylase in the mouth is continued in the
small intestine by the action of a pancreatic amylase, which hydrolyzes starch into maltose
and digestion is completed by the enzyme maltose, into molecules of simple sugar glucose
 Pepsin in the stomach is the prime protein for digestion by breaking them into smaller
pieces – a team of enzymes in the small intestine then completely dismantle the polypeptide
into their component amino acids
 Nearly all the fats in a meal reaches the small intestine completely undigested – bile salts
secreted in the duodenum coat tiny fat droplets and keep them from coalescing in a process
called emulsification, then the small droplets are exposed to lipase, an enzyme that
hydrolyzes the fat molecules
 Thus, the macromolecules from food are completely hydrolyzed into their component
monomers and most digestion is completed in this journey
 The remaining regions of the small intestine, the jejunum and ilium, are specialized in the
absorption of the nutrients

Large Intestine
 The large intestine or colon is connected to the small intestine at a T-shaped injection,
where a sphincter acts as a valve controlling the movement of material
 One arm of the T is a blind pouch called the cecum
 Humans have a small cecum with a finger-like extension – the appendix, which is
dispensible
 The main branch of the colon is shaped like an upside-down U, about 1.5 meters in length

The Respiratory System

 Human gas exchange or respiration includes all those structures that conduct air to and
from the lungs
 The lungs lie deep within the thoracic cavity, where they’re protected from drying out
  As air moves through the nose, trachea, and bronchi to the lungs, it’s filtered free of debris,
warmed, and humidified
 By the time it reaches the lungs, it is at body temperature, and is saturated with water
 Air passes from the pharynx through the glottis (an opening into the larynx or voice box
 At the edge of the glottis embedded in a mucous membrane, are the vocal cords
 These elastic ligaments vibrate and produce sound when air is expelled, and pass them
through the glottis from the larynx
 The larynx and trachea are held permanently open to receive air – the larynx is held open
by a complex of cartilages that form the Adam’s apple, and the trachea is held open by a
series of c-shaped cartilaginous rings that don’t completely meet in the rear
 When food is being swallowed, the larynx rises and the glottis is closed by a flap of tissues
called the epiglottis
 The trachea is divided into two bronchi (singular bronchus) that enter the right and left
lungs – each one branches into a greater number of small passages called bronchioles
 The two bronchi resemble the trachea in structure, but the bronchial tubes are divided and
subdivided – their walls become thinner and thinner, and rings of cartilage are no longer
present
 Each bronchiole terminates in an elongated space enclosed by a multitude of air pockets or
sacs called alveoli (singular alveolus) which make up the lungs

Loading and Unloading of Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide

 The concentration of gases, whether in air or dissolved in water, is measured as partial
pressure – at sea level, the atmosphere exerts a total pressure of 760 mm Hg
 The partial pressure for oxygen is referred to as PO2 (~160 mm Hg), and for carbon dioxide,
the partial pressure is referred to as PCO2 (~0.23 mm Hg)
 A gas will always diffuse from a region of higher partial pressure to a region of lower partial
pressure
 Blood arriving at a lung via the pulmonary artery has a lower PO2 and a higher PCO2 than
the air in the alveoli
 As blood enters a capillary net around an alveolus, CO2 diffuses from the blood to the air
within the alveolus - oxygen in the air dissolves in the fluid that coats the epithelium, and
diffuses across the surface and into a capillary
 By the time the blood leaves the lungs in the pulmonary veins, its PO2 has been raised, and
the PCO2 has been lowered
 After returning to the heart, the blood is pumped through the systemic circuit
 In the systemic capillaries, gradients of partial pressure favor the diffusion of oxygen out of
the blood, and CO2 into the blood
 This is because cellular respiration rapidly depletes the oxygen contents of interstitial fluid,
and adds CO2 to the fluid (again by diffusion)
 After the blood unloads oxygen and loads CO2, its returned to the heart by systemic veins
 The blood is then pumped to the lungs again, where it exchanges gases with air in the
alveoli

Regulating the Internal Environment

 Most animals can survive fluctuations in the external environment more extreme than any
of their individual cell could tolerate
 The animals survive changes in their external environment by maintaining their internal
environment within ranges that can be tolerated by their cells, a condition known as
homeostasis
  One way for animals to balance water exchange with the environment is to be isotonic with
its aqueous surroundings – these animals are known as osmoconformers – animals that
aren’t isotonic with their surroundings are called osmoregulators
 Osmoregulators must either bail out excess water if they live in a hypotonic environment or
continuously take in water to offset osmotic loss if they inhabit a hypertonic environment

The Vertebrate Kidney

 The kidney of vertebrates usually function in both osmoregulation and excretion
 Like the excretory organs of most animal phyla, kidneys are built of tubules called nephrons
 Nephrons are collected into the kidney
 Blood is cycled through the kidneys, which remove the nitrogenous wastes and function in
osmoregulation by adjusting the concentration of various salts in the blood
 The kidney is the blood vessel that serve them and the plumbing that carries urine formed
in the kidneys out of the blood, are the components of the vertebrate excretory system

Anatomy of the Excretory System

 In humans, the kidneys are a pair of bean-shaped organs about 10 cm long
 Blood enters a kidney for filtering via the renal artery and the processed blood leaves the
kidney in the renal vein
 About 20% of the blood pumped with each heart beat passes through the kidney, and they
process all blood once every 5 minutes
 The waste fluid (urine) exits each kidney through a duct called a ureter, which drains into
the urinary bladder
 The bladder is periodically emptied by urination
 The release of urine from the body is through a tube called the urethra that empties near
the vagina or through the penis
 Sphincter muscle near the junction of the urethra and the bladder control urination

General Structure and Function of the Nephron

 The functional units of the kidneys are the nephrons
 There are about 1 million in a human kidney, representing of about 80 km of tubules
 The nephrons control the composition of the blood by means of three processes
o Filtration: blood pressure forces fluid from capillaries into the lumen of the nephron
tubules – the capillary walls act as a filter, being permeable to water and small
solutes, but not to blood cells or plasma proteins, which are large molecules
 At this point, the filtrate contains a mixture of solutes such as salts,
nitrogenous waste, glucose, amino acids, vitamins, and other small
molecules that affect the concentration of these substances in blood plasma
o Secretion: as the filtrate passes through the nephron tubules, it is joined by
substances from the interstitial fluid, by both active and passive transport – for
example, the controlled secretion of hydrogen ions from the interstitial fluids into
the nephrons is important in maintaining a constant pH for the body fluid
o Reabsorption: at various regions along the nephron tubules, some substances in the
filtrate are reabsorbed and returned to the blood – nearly all sugars, amino acids,
and other nutrients, for instance, are reabsorbed in the kidneys of terrestrial
vertebrates, enabling these animals to excrete urine that is hypertonic to the body
fluids
 Filtration itself is non-selective with regard to small molecules, while secretion and
reabsorption are very selective processes that change the composition of the filtrate
substantially as it passes through the tubules
 The organization of the mammalian kidney makes it possible to get rid of urea, a
nitrogenous waste, with a minimal sacrifice of water