Due to different osmotic pressures, freshwater and saltwater fish cannot live in each other's environment. To what extent is this true to other aquatic life?
Posted by Zealousideal_Low9994@reddit | marinebiology | View on Reddit | 8 comments
i.e. if you were to put a crayfish in saltwater, or a lobster in freshwater, how long would they take to die and would the cause of death be the same as a fish in the wrong water body?
Does this also apply to molluscs, anemone, sponges, etc?
What about plants? Will kelp and seagrass die immediately in freshwater?
profanityridden_01@reddit
This goes all the way onto land. Every organism has to maintain it's osmostic balance even you.
This question so so broad and simultaneously specific that I'm not even sure what kind of answer you expect to be given.
Yes?
Zealousideal_Low9994@reddit (OP)
Well basically, how would non-piscine aquatic life forms react to being in the wrong water body?
Would they die in the same timespan as fish? Or would they last longer due to different adaptations?
Really I'm just curious on non-piscine adaptations to salt/freshwater.
profanityridden_01@reddit
Just like with fish I would imagine this would vary from species to species.
Some things that would drive the variability might be permeable surface area. So a frog would have more trouble than a turtle.
Maybe if the organism has a way to deal with osmotic balance actively. Like the complexity and efficientcy of the kidney.
Still a really vague question. What species in particular or family are you interested in?
You asked about lobster in freshwater.. they have no adaptations to deal with freshwater and would quickly and un controllably take on water and die.
Crawfish show some salt tolerance when they are adult but juviniles die rapidly.
The cause of death is a weird question. If it's a single celled organism itight lyse or explode from the water rushing into the cell.
The cause of death is a weird question. If it's a single celled organism itight lyse or explode from the water rushing into the cell.
In general a saltwater fish has to hold on to water and excrete salts at the gill and a fresh water fish has to expel water through dilute urine and hold on to salts .
What made you wonder about this stuff?
theoniongoat@reddit
Lol, I was also confused how to answer this question.
Maybe he is hoping we will tell him about salmon (and the other animals that sometimes live in fresh or salt water, lamprey, striped bass, etc.)
profanityridden_01@reddit
I did my thesis on a freshwater tolerant syngnathid, lol... He's got the audience, just needs to figure out what he wants to know.
OccultEcologist@reddit
This question is hard to answer as it really depends on the organism and what it's adapted too.
Some freshwater shrimp are so sensative that even going from freshwater source 1 to freshwater source 2 will kill them. On the other hand, basically anything that lives in estuaries such as bays, salt marshes, and many mangrove swamps is probably adapted to a wide range of salinity and pH due to the fact that their environments are so affected by the saltwater tide and freshwater river, changing dramatically on a daily basis.
Not to mention the large number of animals that are euryhaline (switching between fresh and salt water) in nature. Remember: Salmon swim to freshwater to lay their eggs, while eels swim out to the sargasso sea from freshwater to do the exact same thing. There are even populations of betta fish, a traditionally very freshwater clade, that are adapted to a brackish environment.
One thing that is important to remember is that the difference between water sources isn't just temperature. It's pH, temperature, nitrogen and oxygen contents, hell even how many minerals an animal can harvest just from the water. And it comes in an absolute wild variety of ranges.
There are fish (soda chiclids) that live in water so basic that the pH is roughly equivalent to detergent or the antacids one might take for stomache upset (around a pH of 10). That's more alkaline than baking soda.
There are other fish (licorice gourami) that live in such acidic water that people have to set timers before entering it so that they don't give themselves chemical burns. At a pH of 3, the water the water is equivalent in acidity to most vinegars.
Have you ever mixed baking soda and vinegar? If so, it's probably unsurprising that either fish, despite both being freshwater animals, might not do well in eachother's habitat. However, with that said, both fish can survive very well at a neutral pH of around 7 given time to adapt. If the soda chiclids wouldn't eat the gourami (which they totally would), you could even keep them both alive in the same tank.
What are you talking about, BTW, is physiological plasticity if you would like to read more. How much you have depends entirely on what you are adapted to. Some animals survive by being extremophiles, and these animals often have low plasticity and die outside of a specific environment. Others thrive by being flexible generalists and can adapt to any number of environment. Some are even both, to some extent.
Sorry that this isn't more help, but I hope it is at least interesting.
Cha0tic117@reddit
It is true of pretty much all aquatic life, and like with fishes, there is a variety of salinity tolerances that different species can survive. Oysters, for instance, have a very broad salinity tolerance, surviving in water that is almost fresh and in full ocean water.
atomfullerene@reddit
It's generally speaking even more true. Fish actually tend to be more resilient to osmotic change than a lot of other aquatic life.