0
What happens to the lamellae and filaments when the fish is out of water?
Wiki User
∙ 6y agoWant this question answered?
Be notified when an answer is posted
Add your answer:
Earn +20 pts
Fish can extract oxygen from water using what?
Fish have lamellae in their gills. As the water flows through the gills and over the lamellae, the oxygen is extracted from the water.
What do fishes use their gills to do?
Fish's gills are made up of a gill bar, gill filaments, gill rakers and gill lamellae. The gill filaments are "stacked" along the the gill bar and the gill lamellae stick out of the filaments at right angles. Deoxygenated blood is carried down the gill bar and into the gill filaments. It then flows through the lamellae and back down the other side of the filament, into the gill bar where the now oxygenated blood gets carried off for use. The way oxygen is diffused into the lamellae is through a countercurrent exchange system. The fish takes in water through the mouth, and pushes it over the the gill filaments and lamellae. The direction of blood flow through the filaments and lamellae is in the opposite direction to the water being forced over them. This means that there is always a good diffusion gradient and the maximum amount of oxygen can be absorbed. If the concurrent exchange system was used, whereby the water and blood would flow in the same direction, only about half of the oxygen in the water would be able to be absorbed. The water is now forced back out of the fish through the operculum.
Through which organ do fish get oxygen?
Those would be the gills. which are composed of many filaments. Gill filaments have rows of thin, vertical lamellae with many capillaries covered by a single layer of cells. Gills are really thin.
How do fish allows gaseous exchange?
Gills have numerous folds that give them a very large surface area.The rows of gill filaments have many protrusions called gill lamellae. The folds are kept supported and moist by the water that is continually pumped through the mouth and over the gills.
Why do bony fish have many gill filaments?
Bony fish have many gill filaments because they use them to breathe. They are also used to transfer things like water and ions.
Do fish pass gas?
Gas exchange in fish involves the gills. The gills are on either side of a fish's mouth, and they're made up of a curved gill arch attached with a v-shaped double row of gill filaments. These gill filaments have on them little bumps called lamellae and it's in these that gas exchange takes place. The Lamellae are very small, only a few cells wide and have a very thin surface for gases to diffuse through into the capillary network, so oxygen can be circulated around the body to cells. Since there are so many gill filaments and so many lamellae on them the surface area for gas exchange to take place is huge. The disadvantages of gas exchange in fish is that gas exchange occurs underwater. Water has much less oxygen dissolved in it than air, and it has 50% more viscosity so it's more resistant to flow. Bony fish have overcome these problems by adaptions 1) Having a counter current circulation of blood in the lamellae, which means that the water that flows over the lamellae meets the most deoxygenated blood which is flowing in the opposite direction to the water. Oxygen in the water then diffuses into the deoxygenated blood through a concentration gradient. The water moves along the lamellae and loses more oxygen as it goes on. Carbon dioxide is also diffused out of the fish in this way. The deoxygenated blood starts off with plenty of carbon dioxide which it doesn't want, and travels along in the opposite direction to the water coming in. The carbon dioxide then diffuses out of the blood to the water which has a much lower CO2 concentration. Losing more CO2 as it goes on and gaining more O2 so in the end the blood is fully oxygenated. This gas exchange system is extremely efficient for the fish and enables it to extract 80% of the available O2 from water as opposed to humans who can only extract 25% from the air. 2)The water is continuously flowing over the gills in what's called a one-way flow, this means there's no dead space like in human lungs. The other problem with gas exchange under water is that temperature affects the rate of oxygen diffusion greatly. A higher water temperature means less oxygen dissolved, and a lower temperature means more. So fish cannot survive very well in waters of high temperature. Also the gill filaments are supported by the buoyancy of the waters so that water can flow between them, but in air the gill filaments stick together. Counter current flow only occurs in bony fish (eg goldfish, snapper) not in cartilaginous fish (sharks).
How is respetory gas exchange maximised in fish gills?
Gills are composed of thousands of filaments which are covered in lamellae (only a few cells thick and contain blood capillaries). This creates a large surface area and a short distance for gas exchange.
What do fish use to breathe?
Fish breathe through their gills. There are usually gills on either side of the pharynx. Gills have thread-like structures (filaments). These filaments exchange the oxygen and carbon dioxide.
What type of gases do fish exchange while breathing?
Fish pull water in through their gills and filter it in the gill rakers. Then the water is forced through the gill filaments. These project out into the flow of the water, allowing the water to cross the lamellae. This results in what is called the "gas exchange". This is when oxygen is exchanged for carbon dioxide. The oxygen enters the blood stream directly when it moves over the capillary membrane. The carbon dioxide leaves the body with the flow of water out the operculum. For more details, please see the sites listed below.
How do acquatic animals breath?
If they are a species of fish, they use their gills to get the oxygen out of the surrounding water. If they are aquatic mammals such as whales or dolphins, they breathe with lungs just as we do and have to get to the surface at regular intervals to breathe out and in.
How do fish get oxygen from under water?
Fish gills contain rows upon rows of lamellae, which are thin, disc-like membranes loaded with a capillary network. The water flows across the lamellae, and oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged directly across the capillary membrane. Humans have similar capillary interchange sites in the lungs, and the gas exchange occurs in much the same fashion, only the fluid from which we get our oxygen is air, whereas fish get their (dissolved) oxygen from the water.
Why does gaseous exchange happen?
Gills and lungs have capillaries exposed to water or air to allow gas exchanges, due principally to gasses' partial pressure. Gas exchange is more difficult for fish than for mammals because the concentration of dissolved oxygen in water is less than 1%, compared to 20% in air. (By the way, all animals need molecular oxygen for respiration and cannot break down water molecules to obtain oxygen.) Fish have developed specialised gas-exchange organs called gills, which are composed of thousands of filaments. The filaments in turn are covered in feathery lamellae which are only a few cells thick and contain blood capillaries. This structure gives a large surface area and a short distance for gas exchange. Water flows over the filaments and lamellae, and oxygen can diffuse down its concentration gradient the short distance between water and blood. Carbon dioxide diffuses the opposite way down its concentration gradient. The gills are covered by muscular flaps called opercula on the side of a fish's head. The gills are so thin that they cannot support themselves without water, so if a fish is taken out of water after a while the gills will collapse and the fish suffocates. Fish ventilate their gills to maintain the gas concentration gradient. They continuously pump their jaws and opercula to draw water in through the mouth and then force it over the gills and out through the opercular valve behind the gills. This one-way ventilation is necessary because water is denser and more viscous than air, so it cannot be contained in delicate sac-like lungs found in air-breathing animals. In the gill lamellae the blood flows towards the front of the fish while the water flows towards the back. This countercurrent system increases the concentration gradient and increases the efficiency of gas exchange. About 80% of the dissolved oxygen is extracted from the water.
