The Circulatory System

                                                      The Circulatory system

 
            The overall importance of the circulatory system is that it transports gases like Oxygen from the lungs to cells around the body and carbon dioxide from the cells to the lungs, it transports the waste from the cells to organs, helps cells fight off infections and foreign molecules or cells, maintains pH levels and ionic concentrations of fluids, and helps maintain body temperature. The Circulatory system carries food and oxygen to all the cells of the body and removes waste. There are 4 types of blood that are part of the circulatory system:

1. Red blood cells- Oxygen and carbon dioxide transport (hemoglobin)
2. White blood cells - fight off foreign molecules/ cells
3. Plasma- a fluid, carries water and nutrients
4. Platelets- blood clots (helps prevents from bleeding too much)

               
              The earthworm has a closed circulatory system just like the frog and the rat. It has 5 hearts and blood is confined to the heart and blood vessels. Worms also have one major blood vessels. The small blood vessels help the gut, nerve cord, and body wall. Blood glands are on the 4^th, 5^th and 6^th segments. They produce blood cells and hemoglobin which dissolves in the blood plasma. The blood of the earthworm moves through a series of closed tubes, or vessels. It goes forward to the anterior end in a dorsal blood vessel and continues to the posterior end in a ventral blood vessel.


           The crayfish has a open circulatory system and it is very different compared to the other organisms. The function is to get blood, then travels through the gills, then returns to the pericardial sinus that is near the heart.  Blood is pumped by the heart that goes to the body cavities, where the tissues surround by blood. The crayfish doesn't have veins or arteries. "Open" means that the organs is surrounded by blood that freely circulates around the body. Sometimes the heart can move the blood by creating pressure waves in the fluid. The vessels carry blood to different regions of the body.


           The frog is very different compared to the crayfish, worm, rat, and human. The frog has a heart, blood vessels and blood. The frog's heart is three chambered unlike the human an rat, which has four chambered. Oxygenated and deoxygenated blood gets mixed in only one ventricle. Blood vessels are  shown by the arteries, veins and capillaries. Arteries carry blood away from the heart to different parts of the frog's body. This is called a arterial system. Veins carry blood from the different parts of the body to the heart. This is called a "venous system". It is three chambered because the pacemaker in the heart is the sinus venous which is a thin sac that gets blood from the caval veins and empties blood in the right atrium.

 

           The rat is very similar compared to the human's circulatory system.
The rat's circulatory system is well developed. It has a heart, blood vessels and blood.  The heart is four chambered and has separation for deoxygenated and oxygenated blood. The top two chambers is the right and left atrium and the bottom two chambers are the right and left ventricle. Its blood that is part of the circulatory system is the plasma and blood cells. The blood goes to the body by arteries and veins. Oxygenated blood goes from the heart to the rest of the body by the arteries. Deoxygenated blood from the different parts of the body to the heart by the veins. Deoxygenated and oxygenated need to be separated because they both do different functions of the body like deoxygenated is in charge of carbon dioxide and oxygenated is in charge of oxygen and if they were mixed, it can affect a organism's energy  to survive.


            The circulatory system relates to the digestive and respiration system because
  the digestive system takes in and uses food and gets broken down. When a part of food   gets broken down, it gets turn into glucose and is used for respiration. Respiration makes energy, carbon dioxide, and water. Energy is used by the body. The heart uses energy to pump blood around the body. This connects to the digestive and circulatory systems. The respiratory system uses oxygen in the blood to transport the food's nutrients to the body for the body's use. Both systems are similar because most of the body's systems are connected to the heart and it is needed in the circulatory system, while it watches  on the respiratory and other systems. They are both different systems. The Respiratory system is the system that controls the exchanges of gases like oxygen and carbon dioxide and the Circulatory system controls by circulating blood throughout your body.  The heart and lungs are important. The blood in your body needs oxygen to produce energy in your body and the only way to get oxygen is by the respiratory system.