Finfish and Shellfish Physiology

Homeostasis

Physiology
Physiology is the science of normal functions and phenomena of living things
It concerns itself with how animal work.

Figure 1-1

Table 1-1

Process map flow chart

Figure 1-5b

Physiology is concerned with homeostasis, and how the body maintains it. What is homeostasis? Think of a body process that is controlled within narrow limits (an example might be blood pH, which must be maintained within pH of 7.0 to 7.7). What happens if there is an internal or external change in the process (for the above example it might be eating a high protein diet external change which causes production of more ketoacids, lowering blood pH)? What does the body system do in the face of this external (or internal) change to keep the system within its limits? What happens if the body system can not get back into the correct range?

Homeostasis
External environment - the biggest challenge that an animal is likely to face. External environment is rarely constant. For example, there will be changes in temperature, water availability, gas concentrations and so on

Homeostasis
Changing environment means that the internal environment surrounding the cells of the animal are constantly being challenged. An absolute requirement of animals is that their internal conditions remain constant, or as near constant as possible.

Homeostasis
This maintenance of a constant internal state is known as homeostasis. What animals must strive to do is to maintain their body fluids in a relatively constant state. For example, ionic composition, pH, dissolved gas concentrations, nutrient levels and so on.

Figure 1-4

Homeostatic mechanisms
Homeostatic control systems Feedback Feedforward Non-physiological homeostatic mechanisms. Acclimatization

Components of feedback system

STIMULUS RECEPTER
Afferent neurons

INTEGRATING CENTER
Efferent neurons

EFFECTOR RESPONSE

Homeostatic control systemfeedback

Negative feedback e.g. change in body temperature of animal with ref. to external Possitive feedback e.g. process of blood coagulation.

Feedforward
It is an anticipatory activity-behaviour which serves to minimize disruption to physiological systems before it happens. For example eating and drinking at the same time. For example, animals can learn to avoid foodstuffs that make them vomit, which has a disruptive effect on homeostasis.

Non-physiological homeostatic mechanisms

It is control without requiring physiological control mechanisms. Equilibrium homeostasis. For example, the animals living in large water bodies.

Acclimatization
This ability to alter the range of variable of homeostasis is called acclimatization. It can be considered as a fine tuning of homeostatic control systems. For example, the physiology of animals which live at sea level differs from that of animals of the same species which live at high altitude.