Point 16 of 22 — Module 4 — Aqueous Solutions and Their Properties (Colligative Properties and Osmosis)Question bank: 0 questions (0 with pictures)
16 7. Links to the aquatic environment
Currents and biodiversity. The book states that dissolved materials directly affect the properties of water, "leading to changes in water currents and biodiversity". Salinity changes density, which drives vertical currents (Module 3). Estuaries, where river water mixes with the sea, have large changes in salinity; only organisms that tolerate wide osmotic changes (euryhaline species such as mullet, eels, salmon) thrive.
Salinity and freezing. Because of salt, polar sea water remains liquid down to −1.9 °C.
Evaporation and salt lakes. Where a lake loses water by evaporation but gets no outflow (for example the Dead Sea or the salt lakes of Wadi El-Natrun), the solute concentration increases until the water is saturated; the vapour pressure of such brine is lower and evaporation slows.
Osmoregulation (Modules 6 and 11) is the set of mechanisms by which organisms keep the right water and salt balance, based on osmosis.
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