Is the sheet-flow design a 'frozen core' (a Bauplan) of the gas exchangers? Comparative functional morphology of the respiratory microvascular systems: Illustration of the geometry and rationalization of the fractal properties

The sheet-flow design is ubiquitous in the respiratory microvascular systems of the modern gas exchangers. The blood percolates through a maze of narrow microvascular channels spreading out into a thin film, a 'sheet'. The design has been convergently conceived through remarkably different evolutionary strategies. Endothelial cells, e.g. connect parallel epithelial cells in the fish gills and reptilian lungs; epithelial cells divide the gill filaments in the crustacean gills, the amphibian lungs, and vascular channels on the lung of pneumonate gastropods; connective tissue elements weave between the blood capillaries of the mammalian lungs; and in birds, the blood capillaries attach directly and in some areas connect by short extensions of the epithelial cells. In the gills, skin, and most lungs, the blood in the capillary meshwork geometrically lies parallel to the respiratory surface. In the avian lung, where the blood capillaries anastomose intensely and interdigitate closely with the air capillaries, the blood occasions a 'volume' rather than a 'sheet.' The sheet-flow design and the intrinsic fractal properties of the respiratory microvascular systems have produced a highly tractable low-pressure low-resistance region that facilitates optimal perfusion. In complex animals, the sheet-flow design is a prescriptive evolutionary construction for efficient gas exchange by diffusion. The design facilitates the internal and external respiratory media to be exposed to each other over an extensive surface area across a thin tissue barrier. This comprehensive design is a classic paradigm of evolutionary convergence motivated by common enterprise to develop corresponding functionally efficient structures. With appropriate corrections for any relevant intertaxa differences, use of similar morphofunctional models in determining the diffusing capacities of various gas exchangers is warranted. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Inc.