3/14/2025

Module 9
The Organ Systems continued
Digestive, Urinary,
Respiratory, Circulatory

Organ Systems

• Are specialized arrangement

of cells to achieve a specific
objective

The Digestive System Processes

Food, Absorbs Nutrients, and
Eliminates Indigestible Waste

• Digestion is the chemical breakdown of food,

which begins at ingestion, the first step in the
digestive process.

• Elimination, the last step in digestive

functions, involves the expulsion of feces.

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Most Macromolecules Are Too Large to Be Absorbed

by the Digestive System

• Macromolecules must be broken down into simpler subunits to be

absorbed.

• Large carbohydrates, such as polysaccharides and disaccharides, are

broken into monosaccharides (simple sugars) such as glucose and
fructose.

• Lipids are broken down into fatty acids and a fatty acid–glycerol unit
known as a monoglyceride.

• Proteins are broken down into amino acids.

• Mineral ions, such as sodium, potassium, calcium, and chlorine ions, enter
epithelial cells of the lining with the help of specific transport proteins
located in the plasma membrane.

The Human Digestive System

• The digestive tract is the main
component of the human digestive
system and consists of a tubular
pathway with accessory organs.

• Associated with the digestive

system are a number of accessory
glands and organs that help break
down food both physically and
chemically.

Digestion Begins in the Mouth

• Once food is ingested and enters the

oral cavity, it is mechanically broken
down and mixed with saliva from the
salivary glands.

• Saliva contains enzymes that break

down starches and it also moistens
and lubricates the food.

• Teeth serve the function of grinding

food into smaller particles, called
mastication

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The mouth and throat

• The muscular tongue helps push the food
mass into the pharynx, triggering the
swallowing reflex; the involuntary action
seals off the air passages with a flap of tissue
(epiglottis).

The Acidity of the Stomach Helps in

Digestion of Proteins
• Swallowing pushes the moist food into the
tubelike esophagus; waves of muscular
contractions in the esophagus push the food
into the stomach.

The stomach

• The stomach is a muscular sac that

stores food.

• Acids and a protein-degrading

enzyme (pepsin) initiate protein
digestion in the stomach.
• Some absorption takes place in the
stomach, but that is not the main
function of the stomach

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Digestive System – Accessory Gland/Organs

• Pancreas: gland-secreting
digestive enzymes
• Liver: produces bile
• Bile: fluid aiding in fat digestion
• Gallbladder: stores and
dispenses bile to small intestine
• What is the impact of having your
gallbladder removed?
Accessory Organ – Not a part of the digestive tract, but are attached and play
essential roles

The Pancreas and Liver Assist Digestion in the

Small Intestine

Bile allows for lipids to be absorbed by packaging them into small droplets

This is the same principal we utilize with detergent cleaning dishes/oily things

Gastric Bypass
• There are
many
variations
because
there are
many reasons
to bypass the
stomach
• In terms of
digestion,
what is lost
with a gastric
bypass?

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All Types of Macromolecules Are Digested

in the Small Intestines
• The small intestine is a thin, highly coiled and
very long tube (~20 feet in an average adult).

• The narrow diameter maximizes exposure of

food to the digestive enzymes made by the
lining of the intestines and secreted into the
intestines by the pancreas.
• The upper segment of the intestines digests
large molecules into simpler forms that the
body can absorb.

The small intestine is

very long
• Its size is due to its
importance.
• The small intestine is
where the majority of
nutrient absorption
takes place.
• Every organ leading
up to it was mostly
breaking food down
into small enough
pieces to be absorbed
here.

The Extensive Folding of the Lining of the

Small Intestines Maximizes Absorption
• In addition, the sheet of
epithelial cells that makes up
the lining extends in fingerlike
projections known as villi.
• Finally, the plasma membrane
of the epithelial cells has
fingerlike projections called
microvilli.
• Digested nutrients are
absorbed as they move across
the microvilli to enter the
epithelial cells, from where
they are released into blood
capillaries or lymph vessels.

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The Large Intestine Absorbs Water and

Concentrates Waste Materials
• After the remaining minerals and
water have been reabsorbed,
residual matter enters the Large
intestine, where it is prepared for
removal from the body as waste
(feces).

• Bacteria living in the colon break

down some of the waste and
produce certain organic molecules,
such as vitamin K and biotin, that
are absorbed by the body.

Special Adaptations of Animal Digestive Systems

• A true digestive tract, a tubelike passageway with

two openings at opposite ends, did not evolve
until about 500 million years ago.

• Prior to development of the true digestive tract,

digestion was achieved in a simple internal cavity
lined with cells specialized for secretion and
absorption.

• The digestive systems of some animals have

special features, usually related to the feeding
habits and dietary preferences of these species.

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The Crop Stores Food,

the Gizzard Grinds It

• The crop is a modified portion of the esophagus

that can expand and store food until it can be safely
digested.

• Most animals have special mechanisms, such as

teeth and powerful jaws, for breaking down
ingested food into smaller particles.

• Certain animals have a muscular gizzard, which

grinds food with small pebbles or sand grains that
the animal ingests for this purpose.

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Closed digestive systems are

digestive systems where there is
only one opening, functioning as
both an mouth and anus.

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All Animals Must Eat to Live

• Animals that eat plants and fungi are herbivores, and animals that eat other
animals are carnivores.

• Omnivores, such as humans and grizzly bears, eat both plants and animals.

• Detritivores, such as earthworms and millipedes, eat the organic matter that is
left over as dead organisms decompose.

Herbivores eat producers

• Includes animals that eat algae
• Even just nectar and pollen

Carnivores eat animals

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Mammalian Order Carnivora

• Carnivora is a classification, not a description of diet
• This is what most of us think of as carnivores
• Not all are carnivores, but most are
• Weasels, seals, bears, lions, tigers, hyenas, racoons

Omnivores eat both

• Around 30% diet is from animals and 70% from produces
• It is never exactly these %s

Detritivores eat dead plant material

• They aren’t just eating the plant material, they are
eating the fungus and other decomposers that are
on the plant material.
• Most require bacteria/fungus within their
stomachs to digest cellulose and lignin

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Herbivores versus Carnivores

• Herbivores have digestive systems that are

specialized to extract nutrients from plant
tissues.

• Herbivores must eat more food, invest

more time, and have more tactics for
breaking down their food than carnivores
because plants contain less protein and
more indigestible cellulose than meat.

• Animals do not secrete enzymes that can

degrade cellulose; some rely on symbiotic
prokaryotes living in their digestive tract to
release glucose from cellulose.

The Urinary System is NOT connected to the digestive system

• The kidneys are responsible for maintaining water and
solute homeostasis in terrestrial vertebrates.

• The kidneys filter and regulate the composition of our

blood at the rate of one liter per minute.

• The vertebrate kidney can excrete waste, while recovering

useful substances from the fluid, and controlling how
much water is lost. It does so in three steps:
- Filtration
- Reabsorption
- Secretion Our kidneys contain millions of highly branched blood
vessels called glomeruli. Blood moves through each
glomerulus under pressure and its fluid component
The main purpose is to dump nitrogen waste (plasma) is filtered into a nephron, shaped like a funnel
with a long tube.

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Blood Plasma Is Filtered in the Glomerulus

• Blood enters and leaves each nephron through a highly

branched tuft of capillaries called a glomerulus.

• The glomerulus lies in a cup-shaped capsule that opens at

its far end into a U-shaped tubule.

• All ions and molecules small enough to pass through these

pores travel with the plasma into the tubule, and substances
too large to pass through (such as large proteins, lipids, and
blood cells) remain in the blood.

In the Tubules, Valuable Substances Are

Recovered from the Filtrate
• The filtrate includes many of the small solutes, such as urea, that
the body needs to get rid of.
• Nitrogen waste in the form of ammonia NH3

The desert-living kangaroo rat • There is reabsorption of valuable solutes (such as glucose, amino
produces acids, salts) and water from inside the tubule.
highly concentrated urine with its
exceptionally long tubules, enabling
it to conserve water. • Our kidneys use active transport, selectively reabsorbing valuable
nutrients and also 99 percent of the water in the filtrate.

• The reabsorption of water and useful solutes causes the filtered

fluid to become increasingly concentrated in waste solutes as it
moves down the tubule, forming urine.

Mammals DO NOT have the most efficient urinary system

• Urea is a molecule
containing 2 nitrogen’s
• Uric acid contains 4 and
is more efficient at
removing nitrogen
waste from the body

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The Urinary System Regulates Water and Solutes

• The kidneys also secrete unwanted substances, such as excess hydrogen ions, and some medications and toxins, into the
tubule.
• Each tubule connects to a larger tube, the collecting duct, which leads to a series of ever-larger tubes that eventually drain
into the ureter, which drains into the bladder.
• Urine is stored in the urinary bladder until it can be excreted into the external environment.

Kidney Stones
• Kidney stones often have no
definite, single cause
• Mineral buildup, from calcium,
salts, and other crystal forming
compounds
• Can either be an overabundance
of these minerals or a lack of
water to dissolve the crystals

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Malpighian tubules – Insect “kidneys”

Rib Muscles and the Diaphragm Help Us Breathe

• The diaphragm is a thick sheet of muscle that forms the floor of the chest cavity and, along with the rib muscles, makes
inhalation possible.
• During inhalation, the diaphragm and the rib muscles contract, moving the rib cage outward and the diaphragm downward,
reducing the pressure in the lungs and thereby drawing oxygen-rich air into the lungs.
• During exhalation, relaxation of the rib muscles and diaphragm compresses the chest cavity, raises the pressure inside the
lungs, and forces air out.
• The respiratory system provides gas exchange for an organism.

The Nose and Mouth Are Part of the

Upper Respiratory System
• The upper respiratory system includes the airways in
the nose, mouth, and pharynx.
• When we inhale, air enters the nasal cavities, where
it is heated and moistened by the mucous
membranes.
• From the nasal cavities, air enters the pharynx at the
back of the mouth.
• The sinuses are hollow spaces in the forehead and
cheekbones that act as resonating chambers and are
part of the upper respiratory system.
• Air moves into the larynx, which houses the
cartilaginous structures that project from the wall of
the larynx and are called vocal chords.

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The Windpipe and Lungs Are Part of the Lower

Respiratory System
• The trachea is the largest breathing tube in our respiratory
system and is lined with microscopic hairs called cilia that
trap small particles before they can reach the lungs.

• The trachea branches into two bronchi, which lead to the

lungs.

• The trachea, bronchi, and lungs make up the lower

respiratory system.

• The bronchi divide into a series of ever-smaller branches

called bronchioles.

• The bronchiole extensions open into the alveoli, where

gases are exchanged across the moist surface of the thin
layer of epithelial cells that line each alveolar sac.

Gases Are Exchanged Across the

Extensive Alveolar Surfaces

• Alveoli are where gas exchange occurs in the lungs.

• At the surface of an alveolus or at the plasma membrane of any cell within the body, oxygen
and carbon dioxide are exchanged through the passive process of diffusion.

How Animals Transport Gases to

Respiring Cells
• The circulatory system distributes gases throughout the body in
vertebrates and some invertebrates.

• All vertebrates have oxygen-binding pigment molecules and

specialized blood cells for transporting great quantities of
dissolved oxygen.

• Oxygen-binding pigments have the ability to pick up oxygen in

regions of high oxygen concentration and release oxygen in
regions of relatively low concentration in a process called
reversible binding.

• The oxygen-binding pigment in humans is called hemoglobin,

and each molecule can carry up to a million molecules of oxygen.

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Hemoglobin Increases the Efficiency

of Gas Transport and Exchange

• Hemoglobin is bound to red blood cells for efficient oxygen/carbon dioxide delivery throughout the body.
• Red blood cells lack nuclei and are shaped like flattened discs that are thinner in the center in order to maximize
surface area and facilitate the rapid exchange of oxygen.
• At a pH ~ 7.2 oxygen is released and CO2 is absorbed, at pH ~ 7.4 oxygen is absorbed and CO2 is released

Other strategies
• Some aquatic animals expose
their blood vessels to the water
for gas exchange

Other Strategies
• In insects the respiratory
system also circulates gasses
through the body, therefore
their circulatory system is not
associated with breathing

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Other ways to breathe

• Birds use a system of air sacs to insure they always
have oxygen rich air in their lungs

Frog respiration
• Tadpole- gills, like fish
• Frog- Lungs
• Cutaneous respiration- some
through the skin

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Moving Materials within the Body

• Cellular respiration requires the delivery of oxygen to

mitochondria and the removal of carbon dioxide generated as
waste.

• The respiratory system enables an animal to bring oxygen into the

body while expelling carbon dioxide.

• Gases diffuse across specialized surfaces of the respiratory system

and are carried throughout the body by the circulatory system.

• The circulatory system is an internal transport system consisting

of tubelike blood vessels, a muscular heart, and fluids that carry
gases, nutrients, and wastes long distances throughout the body.

The Human Cardiovascular System

A four-chambered
muscular heart
pumps a fluid called
blood through a
closed network of
blood vessels.

• The circulatory system of vertebrates is called the cardiovascular system, which comprises the
heart, blood vessels, and blood.

• The two chambers on the right side of the

heart receive blood returning from the
systemic circuit that is low in oxygen and
laden with CO2 and pump it through the
pulmonary circuit.

• The chambers on the left side of the heart

receive oxygenated blood returning from the
lungs and pump it through the systemic
circuit.

• The ventricles have large, muscular walls,

which are required for moving blood out of
the heart and through the pulmonary or
systemic circuits.

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Blood Is a Watery Fluid

Containing Many
Different Cell Types

• Blood plasma is the fluid portion of blood and is 92 percent water; it contains dissolved gases, ions, and
molecules.
• Red blood cells lack a nucleus and are packed with oxygen-binding proteins called hemoglobin for transporting
oxygen throughout the body.
• Platelets are fragments of larger cells that clump together to help staunch the loss of blood if a vessel is
damaged.

Blood Vessels Are the Highways for

Fluid Transport
• Arteries branch many times to form a
network of arterioles that carry blood from
the heart for distribution to the body and
control the flow of blood to the capillaries.

• Capillaries allow the exchange of materials

between the blood and the surrounding
interstitial fluid and cells.

• Veins bring blood back to the heart via a

network of increasingly larger vessels.

• The human cardiovascular system is a closed

circulatory system.

Capillaries Are Specialized for Exchanging

Materials

• Capillaries complete the circulatory loop by connecting arteries to veins.

• Capillaries have extremely thin, porous walls across which materials can diffuse easily.
• The large surface area created by the extensive branching of capillaries ensures efficient exchange of gases,
nutrients, and other materials with the surrounding interstitial fluid, and in turn with respiring cells.

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This does not display capillaries

The capillaries are where

the majority of gas
exchange occurs

The Human Heart Has Two Pumps and

Four Chambers
• The human heart is divided into four
distinct chambers that create two
distinct, physically independent pumping
units.

• The upper chambers of the heart are

called the atria and the lower, larger
chambers are called the ventricles.

• The right and left atria contract at the

same time; then the right and left
ventricles contract simultaneously.

Rhythmic Contractions of the

Heart Produce the Heartbeat
• The beating of the heart is part of the cardiac cycle,
which is made up of a relaxation phase and a contraction
phase.
• The relaxation phase of the cardiac cycle is called
diastole and is represented as the lower number in a
blood pressure reading.
• Systole is the pumping phase, during which blood is
pumped, first from the atria to the ventricles, and then
from the ventricles to the lungs and the rest of the body.
• The signal to contract is delivered to the heart muscle by
a group of specialized cells in a region of the heart called
the sinoatrial (SA) node.

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Ventricular Contraction Generates a Surge of Pressure

That Drops with Increasing Distance from the Heart

• Blood pressure measures the pressure

in the arteries leading to the body from
the left ventricle.
• Between 110/75 and 130/85

• The heart rate is the number of times

the heart beats per minute and can be
measured as the pulse rate.
• 60-100 beats per minute, ~72

• Humans, birds, and crocodilians

have 4 chambered hearts

• Other organisms have different

structure to their hearts
• 2 and 3 chamber hearts are less
efficient at moving gases around the
body

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Different Circulatory Systems

• Closed circulatory system – what we have, everything is connected
• Open circulatory system – found in Arthropods

Open Circulatory System

• Because insects use their respiratory system to transport gases, they

do not need a complex circulatory system.
• Used to transport nutrients, hormones, and waste in insects.

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