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oxygen. Humans and many other organisms are called aerobic organisms because they need oxygen in order to survive.
What is respiration?
Respiration is the term used to refer to the movement of oxygen into your body and tissues and the movement of carbon dioxide from your body to the environment. Different organisms have different modes of respiration and respiratory systems.
hemoglobin. In your alveoli, the oxygen concentration is high and the hemoglobin molecule binds a maximum of four oxygen molecules. Hemoglobin combined with oxygen molecules is called oxyhemoglobin. Our blood animation depicts this nicely and helps kids understand the science behind what is happening in our bodies. Your circulatory system then brings oxyhemoglobin to your other tissues. In the tissues, oxygen follows its pressure gradient. It leaves the hemoglobin molecule and diffuses into your tissues. Alternatively, once near the tissues, hemoglobin also binds with carbon dioxide. This hemoglobin is called carboxyhemoglobin or carbaminohemoglobin. Additionally, carbon dioxide becomes dissolved in the blood. The carbon dioxide is then transported back to the lungs, through the action of your circulatory system.
Other invertebrates like mollusks have gills, which are specialized thin-walled organs for respiration. These gills have folded walls, which increase the surface-to-volume ratio, thereby increasing the gas exchange between the organism and the environment. Also considered invertebrates, insects undergo tracheal respiration. This means that insects have internal respiratory surfaces. These internal respiratory surfaces look like book pages, which earned them the name book lungs. Internal respiration is important because insects live in a relatively dry environment, compared to other invertebrates.