Chapter 37 Flashcards
What is an Animal’s Digestive System?
A body cavity or a tube that mechanically and chemically breaks down food to small particles to get absorbed into the internal environment. It also expels unabsorbed residues, and helps maintain homeostasis.
What is an Incomplete Digestive System?
Some invertebrates have it, food enters and waste leaves a saclike gut through a single opening at the body surface.
What is a Complete Digestive System?
All vertebrates have one, a tubular gut with two openings. A mouth at one end and an anus at the other, along the tube there are specialized regions that process food, absorb nutrients, and concentrate water.
Five Tasks of a Complete Digestive System
- Mechanical processing and motility2. Secretion3. Digestion4. Absorption5. Elimination
Complete Digestive System Task: Mechanical Processing and Moltility
Movements that break up, mix, and directionally propel food material.
Complete Digestive System Task: Secretion
Release of substances, especially digestive enzymes, into the lumen (the space inside the tube).
Complete Digestive System Task: DIgestion
Breakdown of food into particles, then to nutrient molecules small enough to be absorbed.
Complete Digestive System Task: Absorption
Uptake of digested nutrients and water across the gut wall, into extracellular fluid.
Complete Digestive System Task: Elimination
Expulsion of undigested or unabsorbed solid residues.
True or False: Digestive Systems differ due to diet-related adaptations
True, examples include: type of feeding structures and length of the gut
Gastrointestinal Tract in Humans
Gut, starts at the stomach and extends through the intestines to the tube’s terminal opening.
Oral Cavity in Humans
The mouth, food is partially processed here.
Tongue in Humans
Membrane-covered skeletal muscle that positions food for swallowing.
Pharynx in Humans
The throat, the entrance to the digestive and respiratory tracts.
Esophagus in Humans
A muscular tube in between the pharynx and stomach.