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Water and Electrolyte Balance in Animals > Research Links
Maintaining salt and water balance is a fundamental and highly regulated physiological property of all living creatures. Chapter 39, "Water and Electrolyte Balance in Animals," provided you with a comparative approach to this topic by reviewing the different challenges species encounter in relationship to their environment (terrestrial or aquatic) and whether or not they are vertebrates. The following sites offer examples of these differences as well as exciting new research findings about osmoregulation.
39.1 Osmotic Stress and Osmoregulation
Osmotic Stress and Osmotic Pressure Measurements
The site provides links to research data on osmotic stress and pressure. Follow the "Art Gallery" link for many graphics on the interaction between osmotic particles and cell membranes.
Keywords: osmotic stress, osmoregulation, graphics
39.2 Water and Electrolyte Balance in Aquatic Environments
Osmoregulation
This site describes the fundamentals of osmotic regulation and the methods scientists use to study how different organisms, tissues, and cells regulate the concentration of water inside and outside the cell.
Keywords: osmoregulation, electrolyte balance, research
Freshwater vs. Saltwater Fish
This Scientific American article, by Aldo Palmisano from the Western Fisheries Research Center of the U.S. Geological Survey, describes the differences between freshwater and saltwater fish. Follow the link to the "Monterey Bay Aquarium" for information on fish that move back and forth between freshwater and salt water throughout their lives.
Keywords: electrolyte balance, aquatic animals, osmosis
Drinking Seawater
Like all organisms, sea mammals must regularly take in freshwater and must osmotically regulate the water that they take in. In this Scientific American article, Robert Kenney explains how sea mammals can drink salt water and still maintain osmotic balance.
Keywords: aquatic mammals, osmoregulation
39.3 Water and Electrolyte Balance in Terrestrial Invertebrates
Insect Hindgut Reabsorption
As described in the chapter, organisms must have systems for removing waste from body fluids and maintaining the osmotic balance of electrolytic ions and other molecules. This short abstract provides information about another ionic epithelial protein involved in hindgut reabsorption, and therefore salt and water balance in insects.
Keywords: reabsorption, salt and water balance, terrestrial invertebrates
39.4 Water and Electrolyte Balance in Terrestrial Vertebrates
A
New Ion Channel
This article from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Website features research
that identified and characterized a new ion channel that helps regulate salt
balance in animals. Using such proteins and channels terrestrial vertebrates
are able to efficiently regulate osmotic balances while maintaining high levels
of water in the body.
Keywords: ion channel, osmotic regulation, water balance
Gravity
and Electrolyte Balance
With the advent of space-flight, scientists have discovered that gravity has
a huge effect on many physiological processes. This article describes how gravity,
or the lack of it, affects the body’s ability to maintain osmotic homeostasis.
Keywords: osmoregulation, electrolyte balance, gravity, space
Diabetes
Insipidus and Adrenal Failure
Diabetes is essentially a disease of the body's mechanisms for maintaining the
proper osmotic homeostatic balances. This site outlines the physiological causes
of diabetes and describes some of the ways doctors combat the disease.
Keywords: osmoregulation, diabetes, water balance
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2003
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