Overview of the Circulatory System

The Role of the Circulatory System

The circulatory systems is a network of blood vessels supplying the body with oxygen and nutrients, while removing carbon dioxide and waste.

Learning Objectives

Describe the basic properties of the circulatory systems

Key Takeaways

Key Points

  • The heart is central to the circulatory system as it is the fist-sized pump that circulates the blood throughout the body.
  • As animals became more complex and multicellular, the circulatory system evolved because simple diffusion was insufficient to supply all of the cells with nutrients.
  • The coordination of the circulatory system and the respiratory system to ensure proper gas exchange is very important in animals that have lungs and gills.


Key Terms

  • respiration: the process by which cells obtain chemical energy by the consumption of oxygen and the release of carbon dioxide; the process of inhaling and exhaling; breathing
  • cardiac: pertaining to the heart


Most animals are complex, multicellular organisms that require a mechanism for transporting nutrients throughout their bodies and for removing waste products. The circulatory system has evolved over time from simple diffusion through cells, in the early evolution of animals, to a complex network of blood vessels that reach all parts of the human body. This extensive network supplies the cells, tissues, and organs with oxygen and nutrients, while removing carbon dioxide and waste, the byproducts of respiration. The circulatory system can be thought of as a highway system that runs throughout the body.

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Circulatory system is analogous to a highway system: Just as highway systems transport people and goods through a complex network, the circulatory system transports nutrients, gases, and wastes throughout the animal body.

At the core of the human circulatory system is the heart. The size of a clenched fist, the human heart is protected beneath the rib cage. Made of specialized and unique cardiac muscle, it pumps blood throughout the body and to the heart itself. Heart contractions are driven by intrinsic electrical impulses that the brain and endocrine hormones help to regulate. Understanding the heart's basic anatomy and function is important to understanding the body's circulatory and respiratory systems.

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Human heart: The heart is central to the human circulatory system, as it pumps blood throughout the body.

Gas exchange is one essential function of the circulatory system. A circulatory system is not needed in organisms with no specialized respiratory organs, such as unicellular organisms, because oxygen and carbon dioxide diffuse directly between their body tissues and the external environment. However, in organisms that possess lungs and gills, oxygen must be transported from these specialized respiratory organs to the body tissues via a circulatory system. Therefore, circulatory systems have had to evolve to accommodate the great diversity of body sizes and body types present among animals.

Open and Closed Circulatory Systems

The circulatory system can either be open or closed, depending on whether the blood flows freely in a cavity or is contained in vessels.

Learning Objectives

Summarize circulatory system architecture

Key Takeaways

Key Points

  • A closed circulatory system, found in all vertebrates and some invertebrates, circulates blood unidirectionally from the heart, around the body, and back to the heart.
  • An open circulatory system, found in arthropods, pumps blood into a cavity called a hemocoel where it surrounds the organs and then returns to the heart(s) through ostia (openings).
  • The blood found in arthropods, a mix of blood and interstitial fluid, is called hemolymph.


Key Terms

  • ostium: a small opening or orifice, as in a body organ or passage
  • hemolymph: a circulating fluid in the bodies of some invertebrates that is the equivalent of blood
  • hemocoel: the system of cavities between the organs of arthropods and mollusks through which the blood circulates


Circulatory System Architecture

The circulatory system is effectively a network of cylindrical vessels (the arteries, veins, and capillaries) that emanate from a pump (the heart). In all vertebrate organisms, as well as some invertebrates, this is a closed-loop system in which the blood is not moving freely in a cavity. In a closed circulatory system, blood is contained inside blood vessels, circulating unidirectionally (in one direction) from the heart around the systemic circulatory route, then returning to the heart again.

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Closed and open circulatory systems: (a) In closed circulatory systems, the heart pumps blood through vessels that are separate from the interstitial fluid of the body. Most vertebrates and some invertebrates, such as this annelid earthworm, have a closed circulatory system. (b) In open circulatory systems, a fluid called hemolymph is pumped through a blood vessel that empties into the body cavity. Hemolymph returns to the blood vessel through openings called ostia. Arthropods, such as this bee and most mollusks, have open circulatory systems.

In contrast to a closed system, arthropods (including insects, crustaceans, and most mollusks) have an open circulatory system. In an open circulatory system, the blood is not enclosed in the blood vessels, but is pumped into a cavity called a hemocoel. The blood is called hemolymph because it mixes with the interstitial fluid. As the heart beats and the animal moves, the hemolymph circulates around the organs within the body cavity, reentering the heart through openings called ostia (singular: ostium). This movement allows for gas and nutrient exchange. An open circulatory system does not use as much energy to operate and maintain as a closed system; however, there is a trade-off with the amount of blood that can be moved to metabolically-active organs and tissues that require high levels of oxygen. In fact, one reason that insects with wing spans of up to two feet wide (70 cm) are not around today is probably because they were outmatched by the arrival of birds 150 million years ago. Birds, having a closed circulatory system, are thought to have moved more agilely, allowing them to obtain food faster and possibly to prey on the insects.

Types of Circulatory Systems in Animals

The circulatory systems of animals differ in the number of heart chambers and the number of circuits through which the blood flows.

Learning Objectives

Describe how circulation differs between fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals

Key Takeaways

Key Points

  • Fish have a single systemic circuit for blood, where the heart pumps the blood to the gills to be re-oxygenated (gill circulation), after which the blood flows to the rest of the body and back to the heart.
  • Other animals, such as amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals, have a pulmonary circuit, where blood is pumped from the heart to the lungs and back, and a second, systemic circuit where blood is pumped to the body and back.
  • Amphibians are unique in that they have a third circuit that brings deoxygenated blood to the skin in order for gas exchange to occur; this is called pulmocutaneous circulation.
  • The number of heart chambers, atria and ventricles, mitigates the amount of mixing of oxygenated and deoxygenated blood in the heart as more chambers usually mean more separation between the systemic and pulmonary circuits.
  • Warm-blooded animals require the more-efficient system of four chambers that has the oxygenated blood completely separated from the deoxygenated blood.


Key Terms

  • atrium: an upper chamber of the heart that receives blood from the veins and forces it into a ventricle
  • ventricle: a lower chamber of the heart


Simple Circulatory Systems

The circulatory system varies from simple systems in invertebrates to more complex systems in vertebrates. The simplest animals, such as the sponges (Porifera) and rotifers (Rotifera), do not need a circulatory system because diffusion allows adequate exchange of water, nutrients, and waste, as well as dissolved gases (figure a). Organisms that are more complex, but still have only two layers of cells in their body plan, such as jellies (Cnidaria) and comb jellies (Ctenophora), also use diffusion through their epidermis and internally through the gastrovascular compartment. Both their internal and external tissues are bathed in an aqueous environment and exchange fluids by diffusion on both sides (figure b). Exchange of fluids is assisted by the pulsing of the jellyfish body.

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Animals without circulatory systems: Simple animals consisting of a single cell layer, such as the (a) sponge, or only a few cell layers, such as the (b) jellyfish, do not have a circulatory system. Instead, gases, nutrients, and wastes are exchanged by diffusion.

For more complex organisms, diffusion is not efficient for cycling gases, nutrients, and waste effectively through the body; therefore, more complex circulatory systems evolved. Closed circulatory systems are a characteristic of vertebrates; however, there are significant differences in the structure of the heart and the circulation of blood between the different vertebrate groups due to adaptation during evolution and associated differences in anatomy.

Fish Circulatory Systems

Fish have a single circuit for blood flow and a two-chambered heart that has only a single atrium and a single ventricle (figure a). The atrium collects blood that has returned from the body, while the ventricle pumps the blood to the gills where gas exchange occurs and the blood is re-oxygenated; this is called gill circulation. The blood then continues through the rest of the body before arriving back at the atrium; this is called systemic circulation. This unidirectional flow of blood produces a gradient of oxygenated to deoxygenated blood around the fish's systemic circuit. The result is a limit in the amount of oxygen that can reach some of the organs and tissues of the body, reducing the overall metabolic capacity of fish.

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Examples of animal circulatory systems: (a) Fish have the simplest circulatory systems of the vertebrates: blood flows unidirectionally from the two-chambered heart through the gills and then to the rest of the body. (b) Amphibians have two circulatory routes: one for oxygenation of the blood through the lungs and skin, and the other to take oxygen to the rest of the body. The blood is pumped from a three-chambered heart with two atria and a single ventricle. (c) Reptiles also have two circulatory routes; however, blood is only oxygenated through the lungs. The heart is three chambered, but the ventricles are partially separated so some mixing of oxygenated and deoxygenated blood occurs, except in crocodilians and birds. (d) Mammals and birds have the most efficient heart with four chambers that completely separate the oxygenated and deoxygenated blood; it pumps only oxygenated blood through the body and deoxygenated blood to the lungs.

Amphibian Circulatory Systems

In amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals, blood flow is directed in two circuits: one through the lungs and back to the heart (pulmonary circulation) and the other throughout the rest of the body and its organs, including the brain (systemic circulation).

Amphibians have a three-chambered heart that has two atria and one ventricle rather than the two-chambered heart of fish (figure b). The two atria receive blood from the two different circuits (the lungs and the systems). There is some mixing of the blood in the heart's ventricle, which reduces the efficiency of oxygenation. The advantage to this arrangement is that high pressure in the vessels pushes blood to the lungs and body. The mixing is mitigated by a ridge within the ventricle that diverts oxygen-rich blood through the systemic circulatory system and deoxygenated blood to the pulmocutaneous circuit where gas exchange occurs in the lungs and through the skin. For this reason, amphibians are often described as having double circulation.

Reptile Circulatory Systems

Most reptiles also have a three-chambered heart similar to the amphibian heart that directs blood to the pulmonary and systemic circuits (figure c). The ventricle is divided more effectively by a partial septum, which results in less mixing of oxygenated and deoxygenated blood. Some reptiles (alligators and crocodiles) are the most primitive animals to exhibit a four-chambered heart. Crocodilians have a unique circulatory mechanism where the heart shunts blood from the lungs toward the stomach and other organs during long periods of submergence; for instance, while the animal waits for prey or stays underwater waiting for prey to rot. One adaptation includes two main arteries that leave the same part of the heart: one takes blood to the lungs and the other provides an alternate route to the stomach and other parts of the body. Two other adaptations include a hole in the heart between the two ventricles, called the foramen of Panizza, which allows blood to move from one side of the heart to the other, and specialized connective tissue that slows the blood flow to the lungs. Together, these adaptations have made crocodiles and alligators one of the most successfully-evolved animal groups on earth.

Mammal and Bird Circulatory Systems

In mammals and birds, the heart is also divided into four chambers: two atria and two ventricles (figure d). The oxygenated blood is separated from the deoxygenated blood, which improves the efficiency of double circulation and is probably required for the warm-blooded lifestyle of mammals and birds. The four-chambered heart of birds and mammals evolved independently from a three-chambered heart.

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