Osmoregulation of Brine Shrimps

Osmoregulation is an example of an organism maintaining homeostasis. More specifically, osmoregulation involves an animal regulating osmotic pressure, or its fluid content. Brine shrimp, Artemia, use osmoregulation to regulate the saline levels of fluid within their body. Because brine shrimps live in seawater, an environment with a high saline concentration, they must actively excrete excess salt. Brine Shrimps use metepipodites as the location of the ion pump which secretes sodium. This is an active transport of ions because it is moving against the gradient, a higher salt content outside the body. The two following studies describe the environmental conditions ideal for brine shrimp and the possible genetic explanation for the osmoregulation of brine shrimp, respectively.

In the first study examined, “Effect of Different Salinities on the Survival and Growth of Artemina Spp,” researchers Soundaraparian and Saravanakumar designed an experiment to ascertain the ideal conditions for the growth of brine shrimp, or Artemina. In the Introduction, the scientists note the growing significance of Artemina, as it is now used as live feed for over 85 percent of cultured species around the world. Thus, a demand to grow huge quantities of Artemia has arisen, making this study incredibly relevant.

The experiment measured the survival rate, the growth rate, and the size of the brine shrimp at the time harvested in various environments. To obtain these measurements, three environments were created: sea water, brackish water, and freshwater. For this experiment the scientists used 5 liter plastic buckets. Every two days, half of the water from each bucket was discarded and new water, of each respective salinity, was added into each bucket...

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... incredibly relevant to today world. Brine shrimps are also used as test subjects due to their incredible resilience, and are also sold as a novelty item “sea monkeys.” Unfortunately, these unique critters have become threatened in some cases as water is diverted away (for human use) from high saline environments inhabited by brine shrimp. As a result, the water becomes more saline and usually results in a rising pH which can endanger the shrimps. The information provided in these two studies shows the need, function, means, and genetic explanation for osmoregulation. As humans continue to impact the environment, changing salinity will result in changing need for osmoregulation, and as a result, future scientists will need to explore how organisms can react to the need to osmoregulate more or less and how that will impact organism populations’ survival as a whole.