BIOL 206 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Saltwater Fish, Brackish Water, Electrochemical Gradient
Document Summary
Body fluid osmotic concentrations: animals respond to an external osmotic environment in many different ways. Isosmotic line is where the internal tissue osmolality is exactly equal to the external tissue osmolality. Any animal whose internal osmolality to the internal osmolality is known as an osmoconformer body responds to different external medias by making the internal medias match. Osmoconformers can only live in rather narrow areas of osmolality, these are animals that are unable to tolerate large changes in salinity. Due to this we find them in very restricted environments. Osmoregulators have an internal osmolality that remains very stable despite a wide change in external osmolality. Even from very low osmolality"s to very high osmolality"s the internal body fluid remains rather constant it regulates its internal osmolality to remain very stable. Regulators are able to live in a wide variety of environments; however, this is very costly in terms of energy to maintain.
