How do organisms respond to water pollutants?
When pollution enters the body of an organism it causes a variety of changes. These changes can either serve to protect the organism against harmful effects or not. The first response of an organism to pollutants is to bring a protective mechanism into action. In most cases these mechanisms maintain the detoxification of pollutants, but in some cases they produce active substances that can cause more damage to the cell than the original pollutant. Another response is to reduce the availability of pollutants by binding them to another molecule, to excrete or store them. Next to protective mechanisms an organism can also bring a mechanism into action that repairs damage caused by pollutants. Responds to toxicity and the uptake of pollutants not only depends upon the pollutant that enters the organisms body, but also upon the kind of organism in question.
