Introduction: Evolution of the Respiratory Processes

Abstract

In comparative functional morphology, the primary objective is to seek to understand the essence of the founding of the modern animal body forms and sizes by explicating the integrative themes and principles that spatially (horizontally) diffuse across taxa and temporarily (vertically) filter through the evolutionary continuum. Such inclusive data should offer robust answers regarding the basis of organismal and organic designs while underscoring the constraints faced and the trade-offs and compromises transacted towards the development of the definitive morphologies. In this account, a critical synthesis of the constructs of the gas exchangers is given while arguing on the permutations that occurred and the factors that prescribed the inauguration of certain designs in preference to others. The infrastructural resources requisitioned and committed to the construction of the different gas exchangers are comparatively highlighted.

Organisms are not exempt from the rules of physics and chemistry. They are constrained in their evolution of gas exchangers, development of respiratory strategies and exploitation of environments by those characteristics peculiar to oxygen, carbon dioxide, air, water, and the other constituents of gas exchange. Prange (1996)