• Define enantiostasis as the maintenance of metabolic and physiological functions in response to variations in the environment and discuss its importance to estuarine organisms in maintaining appropriate salt concentrations:
– Homeostasis is the process by which organisms maintain a relatively stable (constant) or almost constant, internal environment.
– Enantiostasis is the maintenance of metabolic and physiological functions in response to variations in the environment.
– The difference between the two, is the fact that homeostasis requires only a SPECIFIC internal condition for an organism to function properly, example 37o is the required temperature for humans to function, enantiostasis is for a VARIETY of internal condition which the function can function properly at, for example diving birds rely on enantiostasis to function properly at extremely high and low pressure sky levels.
In homeostasis heat is 'acted against' by sweating etc, the pressure for birds isn't 'acted against'; it is 'adapted' to.