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Marine mammals adaptation to deep and long duration breath-hold diving involves more efficient use of lungs that are proportionately smaller than those of terrestrial animals of similar size. The adaptations to the lungs allow more efficient extraction of oxygen from inhaled air, and a higher exchange rate of air of up to 90% of each breath.
Nearly all animals have more than one kind of Hb present in the RBC. Multiple Hb isoforms (see isoforms) are particularly common in ectotherms, but especially in fish that are required to cope with both fluctuating temperature and oxygen availability. Hbs isolated from the European eel can be separated into anodic and cathodic isoforms.
Desiccation tolerance refers to the ability of an organism to withstand or endure extreme dryness, or drought-like conditions.Plants and animals living in arid or periodically arid environments such as temporary streams or ponds may face the challenge of desiccation, therefore physiological or behavioral adaptations to withstand these periods are necessary to ensure survival.
Marine mammal adaptation to an aquatic lifestyle varies considerably between species. Both cetaceans and sirenians are fully aquatic and therefore are obligate water dwellers. Pinnipeds are semiaquatic; they spend the majority of their time in the water but need to return to land for important activities such as mating, breeding and molting.
Aquatic animals generally conduct gas exchange in water by extracting dissolved oxygen via specialised respiratory organs called gills, through the skin or across enteral mucosae, although some are evolved from terrestrial ancestors that re-adapted to aquatic environments (e.g. marine reptiles and marine mammals), in which case they actually ...
Diving reflex in a human baby. The diving reflex, also known as the diving response and mammalian diving reflex, is a set of physiological responses to immersion that overrides the basic homeostatic reflexes, and is found in all air-breathing vertebrates studied to date.
Euryhaline organisms are able to adapt to a wide range of salinities. An example of a euryhaline fish is the short-finned molly, Poecilia sphenops, which can live in fresh water, brackish water, or salt water. The green crab (Carcinus maenas) is an example of a
Osmoconformers have adapted so that they utilize the ionic composition of their external environment, which is typically seawater, in order to support important biological functions. For instance, seawater has a high concentration of sodium ions , which helps support muscle contraction and neuronal signaling when paired with high internal ...