A. Animal Nutrition and Digestion

1. Define a heterotroph.
2. What is meant by the process of digestion?
3. What is meant by hydrolysis?
4. How does a gastrovascular cavity differ from an alimentary canal? What is the advantage of an alimentary canal?
5. What is the function of a crop in digestion? a gizzard? Which animals have these specialized structures?
6. Know the pathway of ingested food in humans from start to finish.
7. What digestive enzymes are produced in the mouth? the stomach? the pancreas, liver, and small intestine? What substrate does each work on?
8. What are the components of gastric juice, and where are they formed? Where and how are they activated? What special conditions are needed for their functioning?
9. What substance produced by the lumen of the stomach helps to prevent gastric ulcers?
10. What controls the release of gastric secretions?
11. What is the name given for the product of the stomach as it enters the small intestine? What is it likely to contain?
12. In what region of the small intestine does most digestion occur? Most absorpsion?
13. What type of motion moves food through the route of the alimentary canal? In which regions is this movement voluntary, and in which regions is it involuntary?
14. Besides digestive enzymes, what other compounds aid in the digestion of foods?
15. In which region(s) does carbohydrate digestion occur? Proteins? Fats?
16. Describe and diagram the microstructure of one villus of the small intestine, and describe how structure supports function.
17. What is the first stop for all capillaries leaving the small intestine. What happens there?
18. What is a cecum, where is it located, and how does it differ in herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores?
19. What is the chief function of the large intestine?
20. Give an example of how the functional length of the digestive system can differ from its superficial length in one group of animals.
21. Why do some animals eat their own feces (besides starvation)?
22. Besides ingested food, what other important component contributes to the nutrition of ruminating animals?
23. What are the chief components of the feces in humans?

B. Circulation and Respiration

1. What component of the body delivers compounds directly to each cell?
2. What is the main difference between arteries and veins?
3. In which vertebrate group is double circulation first seen, and what advantage does it confer?
4. Diagram the blood flow between heart, pulmonary circuit, and systemic circuit in two chambered vs. three and four chambered hearts.
5. Which of our lab specimens had each of these circulatory designs, and how did this help them to be adapted to their environments?
6. Compare and contrast the respiratory surfaces used by terrestrial insects, fish, amphibians, and mammals.
7. Describe how various methods of capillary exchange are able to move materials between the circulatory system and the target cells.
8. How do hydrostatic pressure, osmotic pressure, and their interaction in the capillary network contribute to material exchange in the body?
9. What are the key differences between air and water as a respiratory medium?
10. How does countercurrent exchange contribute to oxygen uptake in the gills of fishes?
11. What are the key differences between the lungs of amphibians and humans?
12. How does negative pressure breathing work?
13. How do air sacs in birds aid in ventilation of the lungs?
14. How does the medulla monitor the body's need to breath?
15. Are oxygen and carbon dioxide transported actively or passively across cell membranes?
16. How do repiratory pigments aid in oxygen transport?
17. How is carbon dioxide transported in the blood?

C. Controlling the Internal Environment

1. What is meant by homeostasis?
2. Understand hypotonic, isotonic, and hypertonic environments, and animal habitats that would exemplify each.
3. How do osmoconformers and osmoregulators differ in their handling of a hyperosmotic environment? a hypoismotic one?
4. What are the special traits of the transport epithelia in osmoregulators?
5. Give examples of transport epithelia at work in specific areas of a salt water vs. a fresh water bony fish.
6. What are the three different compounds that may be used for excretion of nitrogenous wastes, and how are they distributed among different animal groups? where are they produced, and how are they transported to points of removal (excretion) from the body?
7. What compounds consumed by animals are responsible for most excretion needs?
8. Describe the difference between a protonephridium and a metanephridium.
9. How does the location of Malpighian tubules in terrestrial insects fit their function?
10. What is the function of the kidney in vertebrates?
11. Did all of our lab specimens have kidneys? a urinary bladder?
12. How does the structure of the nephrons aid in concentration of urine, especially in birds and terrestrial mammals?
13. Relate the length of the Loops of Henle in a vertebrate species to its habitat. How does the length affect its functioning?
14. Describe the various methods by which an animal transfers heat to/from its environment.
15. Describe the basic difference between endothermic and ectothermic animals, and be ready to give at least two examples of each from different animal phyla (know the difference between classes and phyla!).
16. What are three behavioral methods used for regulation of heat exchange in animals?
17. What are three physiological methods used for regulation of heat exchange in animals?
18. Describe countercurrent heat exchange as it occurs in the legs of water fowl, the flippers of diving mammals, and the body of a large endothermic fish such as a yellowfin tuna.
19. How does shivering contribute to body heat?
20. Explain what is meant by non-shivering thermogenesis?
21. What are the energy costs of maintaining stable high body temperature eg. in mammals vs. reptiles, or a small amphibian vs. a bird of comparable size?
22. Briefly explain how the hypothalamus interacts with other portions of the body in temperature detection and regulation.
23. What is meant by homeostasis? Be able to give three examples of different processes at work in animal physiology.