Question

What challenges do aquatic organisms that inhabit or visit the bodies of water in estuaries areas have to face and adapt to?

Answer 1

An estuary is basically the mouth of a river where it meets a small stream. they have very low biodiversity because of the extreme conditions.

Animals living in estuaries experience a varying degree of physico-chemical environment.

Some of the challenges faced by these animals include -

• Salinity.
• Hypoxic condiions.
• Varying temperatures.
• Sediment type.
• Turbidity due to suspended slit in estuarine water.

Adaptations of animals -

Animals living in estuaries have thus adapted themselves to this harsh environment. eg: Oysters, blue crabs, etc.

Morphological adaptations in these animals incluse having a small body sixe, fine fringes of hair guarding the respiratory chambers, decreased reproduction rate.

Some animals have also evolced to regulate their intracellular salt concentrations. Regulating the osmolarity can be done via controlling the flux of either water or ions or adjusting the internal water-ion balance.

To avoid fluctuations in temperatures, some animals use nurrowing in the mud.