MODULE 9

Bouyancy and
Thermal
Regulation
 Bouyancy

allows fish to minimize the

energy cost of staying at a
particular depth to feed, hide,
reproduce, or migrate.
Various ways of achieving
neutral buoyancy have
evolved among fishes
 STRATEGIES OF BOUYANCY

incorporation of large reduction of heavy

quantities of low-density tissues such as bone and
compounds in the body muscle

generation of lift by
incorporation of a
appropriately shaped and
swimbladder as a low-
angled fins and body
density, gas-filled space
surfaces during movement
 Shark
In many sharks large
quantities of lipids (specific
gravity: 0.90-0.92) and the
hydrocarbon squalene
(sp.gr.: 0.86), found
especially in large livers,
bring the total body mass
toward neutral buoyancy in
seawater (sp.gr.: 1.026).
SWIMBLADDER
allow precise control of buoyancy
because the volume of gas they
contain can be regulated with
comparative ease
with typical eleostean skeletal and
body composition, swimbladders
occupy about 5% of the marine
teleost’s body volume and about 7% of
the freshwater forms.
Gas as Source
of Static Lift
Fish swimbladders obey Boyle’s law
nearly perfectly, changing volume in
proportion to the ambient (hydrostatic)
pressure, but often retain- ing a slight
positive internal pressure

To be at neutral buoyancy, freshwater

fish need a swimbladder occupying about
7% of the body volume while marine fish
(in denser seawater), need a swimbladder
occupying 5% of the body volume
STRUCTURE OF Swimbladders vary in shape and
in their connections with other
SWIMBLADDER internal organs

The connections with the blood

system are complicated

In ontogeny the swimbladder

arises from a diverticulum in the
roof of the foregut.
STRUCTURE OF
SWIMBLADDER Physostomatous teleosts, (most are freshwater)
retain the connection with the gut as the
pneumatic duct so that the swimbladder lumen
remains in contact with the environment

In the mainly marine physoclistous teleosts, the

swimbladder is open for a brief time in ontogeny,
which allows the larvae to swallow air at the
surface and fill the swimbladder for the first time
 TYPES OF
SWIMBLADDER

Physostomous Physoclistous
have a connection (pneumatic duct) between the
swimbladder and the gut.
Physostomous fish inflate their swimbladders by
engulping air at the water’s surface and forcing it through
the pneumatic duct into the swimbladder by buccal force
mechanism
Physostomes are largely shallow-water forms
Deflation of the physostomous swimbladder is
accomplished by a reflex action, the gass-puckreflex (gas-
spitting reflex
Fish with “closed” swimbladders have special
structures associated with the circulatory system
for inflating or deflating the swimbladder.
Presumably because these structures :free” fish
from dependency on the surface, over two-thirds
of all teleosts (especially the more derived, spiny-
rayed species) are physoclistous.
 GAS GLAND RETE MIRABILE
sources of the inflation of gas sources of the inflation of gas
In gas gland, it is through a is a tight bundle of thousands of
biochemical addition of acids and afferent (running toward) and
solutes and dissolved gasses, efferent (running from) capillaries
which increases the partial surrounding each other.
pressure in the gland allowing the With rete mirabile, it also involves
diffusion of oxygen to the gas diffusion
swimbladder. However, the diffused gas is due
Oxygen is usually deposited in the to the different direction of blood
swimbladder. in the capillaries
Gas in the The swimbladder gas is mainly O2 when freshly

Swimbladder
secreted, as it is in the swim- bladders of deep-
sea fish.

Studies of the swimbladder gas in deep-sea

fish literally began with an explosion.

The polymathic French physicist J.-B. Biot took

gas from deep-sea fish caught by long-lining,
and put it (with excess hydrogen) into a glass
eudiometer tube.
A fish using a gas-filled
swimbladder has to overcome 1 How to drive gas across the
three different problems: opposing partial pressure gradient
from blood to swimbladder lumen.
2 How to retain gas within the
swimbladder and prevent it
diffusing out.

3 How gas may be sometimes

permitted under controlled
conditions to pass from the
swimbladder to the blood or
directly to the water.
 Physostomes simply have to open the pneumatic
duct from the swimbladder to the gut and allow
gas to bubble out of the mouth or anus

GAS In the conger eel the pneumatic duct is first

expanded and gas comes into contact with the
systemic circulation, before further expanding to

RELEASE release gas into the esophagus via a valved opening

Physoclists simply need a capillary system

to bring systemic blood in contact with the
swimbladder wall
 Gas enters the swimbladder via blood
capillaries that run into a modified area of the
inner wall: the gas gland

GAS The rete consists of thousands of alternately

opposed and parallel afferent and efferent

REtention capillaries

Blood leaving the swimbladder flows through

the rete in venous capillaries closely
opposed to the entering arterial capillaries
GAS SECRETION
Specialized cells
The cells are rich
are functionally
in glycogen, gas gland cells
and structurally
carbonic have a high PCO2
bipolar. They
anhydrase, and and CO2 rapidly Actively secreting
secrete surfactant
lactate diffuses across gas gland cells
into the
dehydrogenase, into the red blood can reduce blood
swimbladder by
and when gas cells to begin the pH down to pH 6.5
exocytosis, and at
secretion is Root effect
the basal pole,
required, release
acid metabolites
lactic acid
into the blood
THERMOREGULATION
Most fish, as cold blooded (ectotherms) have body
temperature close to that of their environment
because of the metabolic heat loses via the skin or
the gills.
The low rate of metabolic heat production and the
high heat capacity of water result in continuous heat
losses
If there is no thermal regulation fish might freeze in
the deep waters.
 Behavioral Physiological
01
this concerns the movements exhibited only by several continuous
of fish from the water mass or swimming species.
an area to another In this case they use their Retia
characterized by a warmer or Mirabilla to conserve heat produced by
cooler temperature. ADAPTATIONS metabolism
The arrangement and the mechanism is
Because metabolism and
almost similar only that instead of
digestion is affected by OF gases it is heat that is diffused.
temperature, some fish selects
Another adaptation is the placement of
a particular water mass with THERMOREGULATION major arteries and veins for blood
specific temperature that suits
transport between the heart and gills
them best
and the heat exchanger which are
This is to conserve energy or to 02 located close to the skin, enabling the
run their metabolic machinery transport of cool blood to and from the
at its most efficient heat exchanger without absorbing
temperature much of the heat produced by
swimming muscles.
 Poikilothermic
internal temperature varies

Homeothermic
internal temperature remains
stable
Ectothermic
temperature is controlled
externally

Useful Endothermic

terminologies
temperature is controlled
internally
Thank You!