:In plants
, the process by which animals and plants rid themselves of waste products and of the nitrogenous by-products of metabolism. Through excretion organisms control osmotic pressure—the balance between inorganic ions and water—and maintain acid-base balance. The process thus promotes homeostasis, the constancy of the organism’s internal environment.
Plants have no special organs for removal of wastes. The waste products of respiration and photosynthesis are used as raw materials for each other. Oxygen gas produced as a by-product of photosynthesis is used up during respiration and carbon dioxide produced during respiration is used up during photosynthesis.
is carried out in the plants in the following ways:
- The gaseous wastes, oxygen, carbon dioxide and water vapour are removed through stomata of leaves and lenticels of stems.
- Some waste products collect in the leaves and bark of trees. When the leaves and bark are shed, the wastes are eliminated.
- Some waste products are rendered harmless and then stored in the plant body as solid bodies. Raphides, tannins, resins, gum, rubber and essential oils are some such wastes.
in animals
Many unicellular organisms like Amoeba throw out their wastes by diffusion from their body surface. Protozoan’s have no organs for excretion. As they live in an aquatic habitat, their wastes are eliminated by diffusion through the plasma membrane.
Simple multicellular organisms like Hydra throw out solid waste matter through their mouth. Higher multicellular organisms have well-defined specialized excretory organs. These organs could be simple tubular structures as in flatworms and leech.
The excretory organs of insects (e.g., grasshopper, cockroach and housefly) are also tubular. They remove nitrogenous wastes from the body fluid and help in maintaining the water balance in the body. In vertebrates, the main organs of excretion and maintenance of water balance are the kidneys.
Excretory System in Human
Our excretory system consists of kidneys, blood vessels that join them, ureters, urinary bladder and urethra. They help produce and excrete urine.
There are two bean-shaped kidneys that lie in the abdominal cavity, one on either side of the vertebral column. The kidneys are reddish brown. Each of them is about 10 cm long and weighs about 150 g. Although they weigh less, they receive a lot of blood for filtration.
A volume of blood nearly equivalent to that in the whole body passes through the kidneys every four or five minutes. The kidneys produce urine to filter out the waste products, like urea and uric acid, from the blood.
Urine leaves each kidney through a tube called ureters. The ureters from both the kidneys are corrected to the urinary bladder that collects and stores urine. Ureters carry urine from the kidneys into the urinary bladder. The urethra is a canal that carries urine from the bladder and expels it outside the body.
Each kidney is enclosed in a thin, fibrous covering called the capsule. A renal artery brings blood into the kidney, along with nitrogenous waste materials. After filtration in the kidney, the purified blood leaves the kidney through a renal vein.
Structure and Function of a Nephron
A nephron consists of a long coiled tubule and the Malpighian corpuscle. The tubule of the nephron is differentiated into the proximal convoluted tubule, Henle’s loop and the distal convoluted tubule. The distal tubule opens into the collecting duct. At the proximal end of the nephron is the Malpighian corpuscle, which consists of Bowman’s capsule and the glomerulus. Bowman’s capsule is a double-walled cuplike structure which surrounds the dense network of blood capillaries called the glomerulus.
The process of excretion in nephron
The process of excretion may be divided into three stages- tubular secretion.
Filtration: Filtration of blood occurs under high pressure in the nephrons of the kidney. Blood enters the glomerulus through the afferent arteriole (with a wider lumen) and leaves through the efferent arteriole (with a narrow lumen). Therefore, blood passes through the glomerulus under pressure. This results in filtration of blood.
Selective reabsorption: Some molecules of the glomerular filtrate are selectively reabsorbed into the blood. The glomerular filtrate flows through the proximal convoluted tubule, the U-shaped Henle’s loop and the distal convoluted tubule. It contains many useful substances such as glucose, amino acids and salts.
Tubular secretion: Some nitrogenous waste products like creatinin and some other substances like potassium ions are removed from the blood by the distal convoluted tubule, and are then added to the urine. This is called tubular secretion.