2. Compare and contrast the following processes
in plants and animals: reproduction,
development, nutrition, gas exchange,
transport/circulation, regulation of body fluids,
chemical and nervous control, immune systems,
and sensory and motor mechanisms.
3. Explain how some organisms maintain steady
internal conditions (e.g., temperature
regulation, osmotic balance and glucose
levels) that possess various structures and
processes
4. Organismal biology is the study of living
organisms, including their structure, function,
behavior, and evolution. This field of biology
focuses on understanding organisms at all
levels of organization, from the molecular to
the ecosystem level.
5. Organismal biology is an interdisciplinary field
that draws on principles from various areas of
biology, including genetics, ecology, physiology,
anatomy, and evolution. It also incorporates
other disciplines, such as geology, chemistry,
and physics, to understand the interactions
between organisms and their environment.
6.
7. As a field, animal morphoanatomy
aims to understand how morphological
form is related to function in the
broadest sense.
8. The first goal is to understand whether different
body forms and physical structures (e.g., bone
dimensions) match in a logical way with the
functions that they appear well suited for (e.g.,
locomotion, feeding), and whether such
matching makes sense in an evolutionary and
ecological context.
9. A second goal is mechanistic; namely, to
understand how basic functions, such as
locomotion, occur by examining lower-‐level
components, such as muscles, bones, and heart
tissue.
10. The field is a comparative subject, and discusses
both the morphology and physiology of
functional systems (such as the senses, the
nervous system and the reproductive system) in
various animals, and their relationships with the
animal’s way of life and phylogeny.
11.
12. When we think of animals, we often think of
mammals or any vertebrate (animals with
backbones), but these represent only a small
fraction of the animal kingdom.
Although nearly 1.5 million species of animals
have been described, 95% of them are
invertebrates, or animals without backbones.
13. • Animals are multicellular.
• They all have specialized groups of cells
with a similar function.
• We call these collections of cells the tissues.
• Different tissues combine to form organs.
• Various organs that carry out major body
functions are called organ systems.
14. • Animals are heterotrophic.
• This property of animals means that they are
not capable of producing their own food, unlike
plants, which have photosynthetic machineries
that enable them to convert the energy of
sunlight into chemical energy in the chemical
bonds of the food products that they make.
15. • Animals are motile.
• They are capable of locomotion at some
stage of their life.
16.
17. • Animals engage in sexual reproduction.
• They consist of diploid cells that contain two
sets of chromosomes.
• There is no counterpart in animals to the
alternation of generations found in plants.
18. Three of the most important
properties that distinguish the body
plans of animals are symmetry, body
cavities, and segmentation.
19. • Body symmetry is the arrangement of the
body parts of animals.
• An object has symmetry if it can be bisected
into two mirrored halves.
20. • Animals exhibiting radial symmetry usually
have a cylindrical body composed of similar
parts that are arranged in a circular fashion
around a central axis.
• Animals with this type of symmetry are
either sessile (sea anemone) or slow-‐moving
(jellyfish).
21. • This symmetry is actually adaptive for them
because sensory information and food
matter come from all directions.
• There is no cephalization in these animals.
22. • Bilateral symmetry is exhibited by animals
that are more motile.
• This type of symmetry can be seen in animals
which usually have a body composed of
mirror images when an imaginary line is
drawn down a single axis.
• There is cephalization in these animals.
23. • Cephalization is the concentration of sense
organs and nervous tissue at the leading end
of the body (anterior) to form a “head.”
• This allows animals to gather information
about the environment into which they are
entering.
24. • Body cavities are the spaces within the body
of animals.
• Nearly every animal on earth has at least
one internal chamber in which food matter is
collected.
• This chamber is called the digestive tract.
25. • In animals with radial symmetry, the digestive
tract is a blind sac, which is radially symmetric,
in keeping with the radial symmetry of the
animal.
• This type of digestive tract can be seen in
cnidarians.
• In other animals, it may consist of a complete
internal tube, which we call the gut.
26. • Why is the digestive tract important?
• Diffusion limits the size of the organism.
• The digestive tract is an important
adaptation because it allowed the transport
of materials in animals where diffusion is not
sufficient for transport.
27. • In addition to digestive tract, most animals
have at least one other major body cavity
that develops between the digestive tract
and the body wall.
28. • Like body symmetry, the difference in the
nature and the location of the body cavity
distinguish major groups of bilaterally
symmetric organisms.
• The cavity is called a coelom (Greek
koiloma– cavity.)
29. • There are 3 major classes of animals
according to the type of body cavities.
• Animals with no body cavities are called
acoelomate animals.
• This is characteristic of a group of organisms
called flatworms (Phylum Platyhelminthes).
30. • They have a gut cavity, but no body cavity.
• Flatworms are thin because of their
acoelomate body design.
• They lack any circulatory system, so
dissolved substances such as oxygen,
carbon dioxide, and nutrients must pass
through the solid body by diffusion.
31. • Animals with false coelom are called
psuedocoelomate animals.
• This is the typical body plan of the
roundworms (Phylum Nematoda).
• The body plan of roundworms is that of a
tube within a tube.
32. • The coelomate animals are those animals that
possess a body cavity.
• The main distinction between the
psuedocoelomates and the coelomates is the
origin of the tissues in the body cavity.
• Coelomates include the Phylum Chordata
(chordates), the Phylum Arthropoda (arthropods)
and the Phylum Mollusca(mollusks).
33. Having a body cavity has three advantage.
• Circulation -‐ Fluids that move within the
body cavity can serve the function of a
circulatory system. This makes larger bodies
possibleor faster ones.
34. • Movement – Fluid in the body cavity makes
the animal’s body rigid. This is called a
hydrostatic skeleton. It is essentially a
sealed, fluid filled tube. This increases the
effectiveness of an animal’s muscular
contractions.
35. • In addition to the muscles working against
the water or a substrate, the muscles have
something to work against in the animal’s
body.
36. • Organ function – The body muscles can
move and distort the outer body wall, but
the internal organs are protected from being
squished by the coelomic space. Digestion
was no longer a function of the movement of
the animal.
37. • Digestion could proceed at a constant or
faster rate, supplying more energy to the
animal, enabling it to go faster, or become
larger. The coelomic space also allowed the
development of other organ systems, like a
separate circulatory system.
38.
39.
40. • Segmentation is the
division of the body into
repeating segments.
• The earthworm body is
constructed of
repeating subunits or
segments.
41. • Each segment is separated by a partition
called a septum.
• Each segment has its own set of muscles
which operate independently, its own
excretory organs, nerves, etc.
42.
43. • Segmentation was the most nobel
developments in evolution and the first
animals to evolve with this body plan were
the annelid worms, phylum Annelida.
• Segmentation is important because growth
of an organisms was simplified by
repeating units.
44. • It allowed for specialization of different
segmentsfor different functions.
• The most important is the specialization of
different segments for locomotion.
• Segmentation underlies the body plan of all
coelomates.
• Not just annelids, but arthropods (e.g. lobster)
and chordates – the vertebrates.
45. These terms are commonly used to define the
relative positions of structures within an organism.
Here are some of the commonly used terms:
Anterior Posterior
Dorsal Ventral
Superior Inferior
Proximal Distal
Medial Lateral
46. Anterior: Refers to the front or head end of an
organism. For example, in humans, the head is
located at the anterior end of the body
Posterior: Refers to the back or tail end. For
example the tailbone or coccyx is situated at the
posterior end.
47. Dorsal: Refers to the back or upper side of an
organism. In humans, the back is considered the
dorsal side.
Ventral: Refers to the belly or lower side of an
organism. In humans, the front side of the body is
considered ventral.
48. Superior: Indicates a structure that is positioned
above or higher in relation to another structure. For
example, the head is superior to the neck.
Inferior: Indicates a structure that is positioned
below or lower in relation to another structure. For
instance, the feet are inferior to the knees.
49. Medial: Refers to the middle or midline of an
organism. It describes a structure that is closer to
the midline. For example, the nose is medial to the
ears.
Lateral: Refers to the side of an organism or a
structure that is away from the midline. For
instance, the ears are located laterally on the head.
50. Proximal: Describes a structure that is closer to the
point of attachment or the center of the body. For
example, the elbow is proximal to the wrist.
Distal: Describes a structure that is farther away
from the point of attachment or the center of the
body. For instance, the fingers are distal to the
wrist.
