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Osmoregulation is the active regulation of the osmotic pressure of an organism's body fluids, detected by osmoreceptors, to maintain the homeostasis of the organism's water content; that is, it maintains the fluid balance and the concentration of electrolytes (salts in solution which in this case is represented by body fluid) to keep the body fluids from becoming too diluted or concentrated.
The process of osmosis over a semipermeable membrane.The blue dots represent particles driving the osmotic gradient. Osmosis (/ ɒ z ˈ m oʊ s ɪ s /, US also / ɒ s-/) [1] is the spontaneous net movement or diffusion of solvent molecules through a selectively-permeable membrane from a region of high water potential (region of lower solute concentration) to a region of low water potential ...
Early research in the 19th and 20th centuries on osmosis and diffusion provided the foundation for understanding the passive movement of molecules across cell membranes. [ 10 ] In 1855, the physiologist Adolf Fick was the first to define osmosis and simple diffusion as the tendency for solutes to move from a region of higher concentration to a ...
As mentioned above, passive diffusion is a spontaneous phenomenon that increases the entropy of a system and decreases the free energy. [5] The transport process is influenced by the characteristics of the transport substance and the nature of the bilayer. The diffusion velocity of a pure phospholipid membrane will depend on: concentration ...
One example of passive diffusion is the gas exchange that occurs between the oxygen in the blood and the carbon dioxide present in the lungs. [3] Facilitated diffusion is the movement of polar molecules down the concentration gradient with the assistance of membrane proteins. Since the molecules associated with facilitated diffusion are polar ...
Multicomponent diffusion is diffusion in mixtures, and diffusiophoresis is the special case where we are interested in the movement of one species that is usually a colloidal particle, in a gradient of a much smaller species, such as dissolved salt such as sodium chloride in water. or a miscible liquid, such as ethanol in water.
Sea slugs respire through a gill (or ctenidium). Aquatic respiration is the process whereby an aquatic organism exchanges respiratory gases with water, obtaining oxygen from oxygen dissolved in water and excreting carbon dioxide and some other metabolic waste products into the water.
Fluid balance is an aspect of the homeostasis of organisms in which the amount of water in the organism needs to be controlled, via osmoregulation and behavior, such that the concentrations of electrolytes (salts in solution) in the various body fluids are kept within healthy ranges.