Explain how fish produce such efficient ventilation of their

Explain how fish produce such efficient ventilation of their gas exchange system including why they need this ventilation to be so efficient.

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Solution

The gas exchange organs of the fish are called gills. Fishes have a mechanism of continually passing water over their gills which is an example of ventilation. Ventilation in fishes is unidirectional.

Fish gills are highly complex structures which are capable of separating oxygen from water. Gills are made of filaments (the feathery red things) attached to a rigid gill arch. The arches are hollow and have arteries inside them. These arteries branch into smaller arterioles that run inside the filaments. Each flat filament has many tiny folds in it (Called lamellae) to increase surface area. In fast moving fish, the surface area of the gills may be ten times that of the actual animal. Tiny Capillaries branch off of the arterioles and carry the blood close to the inner surface of the lamellae. Because the oxygen concentration is less in the blood than in the water flowing over the gills, the oxygen from the water naturally diffuses into the blood.

There is an adaptation that fish have to maximize the flow of oxygen into the blood called countercurrent exchange. This is when the water flowing over the lamellae is in the opposite direction as the blood flowing through the capillaries. In this way, the concentration of oxygen in the blood as it moves through the capillaries is always lower than the water, and oxygen will diffuse over the whole length of the lamellae. Once the blood is fully oxygenated from its trip trough the grills, it is pumped back into the body and used by the fish for energy, filling the float bladder, and for nearly all of the metabolic processes in the fishes body.

Fishes need to have efficient ventilation because they are aquatic organisms and they have to consume oxygen from the water. As oxygen is dissolved in water, so they need an efficient system of ventilation so that they can consume oxygen. Also, to release carbon dioxide from its body, they need efficient network of vessels.