Osmoregulation challenges are different in fresh and salt waters
Osmoregulation is the active process that allows the regulation of the body's osmotic pressure , preserving the osmotic balance in the body membranes. To understand the concept, it is necessary to pay attention to several notions.
Osmotic regulation
The idea of homeostasis refers to the self-regulation phenomena that make it possible to maintain constant the properties and composition of the organism's internal environment. In this framework, the osmotic pressure is important, exerted by the particles of a solvent that is in a solution on the membrane that establishes a separation from another solution of higher concentration. Osmotic balance , meanwhile, refers to the balance between water and salts.
Returning to osmoregulation, also known as osmotic regulation , it consists of maintaining homeostasis of the body in terms of water content and solute concentrations. This is key since metabolic reactions take place in liquid environments, which requires that the concentrations of water and solutes be within appropriate limits.
Osmoregulation requires that solutes move between the internal and external environment under certain parameters. That is why control of osmosis is key.
It must be taken into account that electrolytes and water enter the body regularly from the consumption of food. The surplus of these elements and the waste produced by the body are transported to the kidneys and then excreted, which helps maintain osmotic balance. If osmoregulation fails, waste or water can accumulate, with serious health effects.
Different environments
We can find osmoregulation in aquatic and terrestrial animals. The former have an adaptation that allows them to live in a wide number of habitats , ranging from fresh water to extremely salty water, so the challenges in this framework are also very diverse. Furthermore, not all species function in the same osmotic concentration range: stenohaline organisms accept a narrow one, while euryhaline organisms accept a wide one.
In the terrestrial environment , one of the most important problems is dehydration. With respect to osmotic concentration, these animals have from twenty-five to fifty percent less than marine animals, although more than freshwater animals. Obtaining water occurs in three ways: drinking it directly, ingesting it with food or producing it through the oxidation of carbohydrates, proteins and lipids.
Osmoregulation in vegetables
This phenomenon also takes place in plants. Depending on the amount of water they need to live, we can recognize three classes: hydrophytic plants, which adapted to living partially or totally submerged in water; the mesophytes , which adapted to average water consumption; xerophytes , which can live in aridity. Halophytic plants, on the other hand, are those that can develop in soils with considerable salt concentrations.
In the plant kingdom we also appreciate osmoregulation
Xerophytes grow in deserts and halophytes grow in saline soils , and both are almost continuously exposed to a phenomenon known as water stress : it occurs when the plant demands more water than it can obtain over a period of time. of time, or when you must restrict your consumption due to the quality of the water. Among the mechanisms they use to be able to live with these limitations is especially efficient use. There are also plants that have a thick cuticle that retains water very effectively.
We must not fail to mention that species from saline soils have a low osmotic potential at the cellular level, thanks to which water enters their body more easily , a clear example of osmoregulation. Thanks to excluding ions in the leaves or having the vacuoles organized in compartments, they ensure that the salts do not cause injuries.