Chemical Treatment Methods Pilot (CTMP) System for Treatment of Urban Runoff – Phase I. Feasibility and Design

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Functional morphology of cephalopod gills

There is a wealth of literature dealing with fish gills (Review, see Hoar & Randall, 1984), yet hardly anything is known about the gills of cephalopods. This is rather surprising considering the commercial importance of the cephalopods. In view of the paucity of information available it was necessary to start by establishing the morphology of the gills. This is covered in the first section of this thesis. Of all the cephalopods, Octopus vulgaris was singled out for more detailed investigation (see chapters 2 & 3) as its physiology is comparatively well understood (Wells, 1978). The gills of cephalopods are the major sites for respiratory gaseous exchange. It follows that their dimensions might be expected to govern their potential for absorbing oxygen. Section two deals with the morphometries of cephalopod gills, and predicted values are compared with physiological measurements of oxygen uptake for four representative The final section describes the physiological experiments I performed on octopuses. These experiments were designed to find out whether the animals could regulate the gills' potential to take up oxygen through changes to the gills themselves.