Support Movement and Locomotion in Humans
Introduction:
- Movement is a vital characteristic of living organisms, observed across animals and plants, ranging from simple to complex forms.
- Unicellular Organisms: Protists like Amoeba exhibit movement through the streaming of protoplasm.
- Multi-cellular Organisms: Various movements such as ciliary, flagellar, and tentacular movements are observed in organisms.
- Human Beings: Human movements include limb movement, jaw movement, eyelid blinking, tongue movement, etc.
- Amoeboid Movement:
- Exhibited by specialized cells like macrophages and leukocytes.
- Pseudopodia formation through the streaming of protoplasm, similar to Amoeba.
- Cytoskeletal elements like microfilaments participate in amoeboid movement.
- Ciliary Movement:
- Found in internal tubular organs lined by ciliated epithelium.
- Coordinated ciliary movements help in removing dust particles and foreign substances from the trachea. They also facilitate the passage of ova through the female reproductive tract.
- Muscular Movement:
- Movement of limbs, jaws, tongue, etc., is driven by muscular contractions.
- Muscles' contractile property is crucial for locomotion and various other movements in humans and multicellular organisms.
- Effective locomotion requires coordinated activity among the muscular, skeletal, and neural systems.
- Locomotion: Voluntary movements resulting in a change of place or location.
- Examples: Walking, running, climbing, flying, and swimming.
- Structures Involved: Locomotory structures may overlap with those involved in other movements. For instance, in Paramecium, cilia aid in both food movement and locomotion.
- Interconnectedness of Movements and Locomotion:
- Movements and locomotion are closely linked. For example, Hydra uses its tentacles for capturing prey and locomotion.
- All locomotions are movements, but not all movements are locomotions.
- Variety in Locomotion:
- Methods of locomotion vary based on habitat and situational demands.
- Locomotion is primarily for searching for food, shelter, mates, breeding grounds, suitable climates, or escaping from predators.
- Cell membrane outgrowths aiding in movement, essential for various organisms like spermatozoa and Euglena.
- Flagellar movement facilitates sperm swimming and maintains water current in sponges' canal system, while cilia assist in locomotion for protozoans like Euglena.