Vertebrate lungs: structure, topography and mechanics

Abstract

Vertebrate lungs are highly diverse in their structure, topographical position, ventilation mechanisms, constructional integration into the locomotor apparatus, and the interrelationships with the mode of their ontogenetic development. Vertebrate lungs evolved as supplementary air-breathing organs in primary fishes, being ventilated by buccal pumping. In most recent fishes the lungs are transformed into the hydrostatic swimbladder. This basic type of unicameral lungs and their buccal pumping ventilation are also found in recent amphibians. Land vertebrates developed a very efficient aspiration type of ventilation. In most recent reptiles the lungs are subdivided into three rows of lung chambers, enlarging the exchange surface in correlation to their increasing metabolic needs. The avian respiratory apparatus, with its volume-constant lungs and highly compliant air sacs, and the mammalian broncho-alveolar lung, with its very low compliance, are both derived from multicameral lungs. The avian and the mammalian respiratory systems are integrated very differently with the specific constructions of their locomotor apparatusses and the specific mode of their ontogenetic development.