When, is an organism called a 'conformer'? Explain with the help of an example.

Explanation

Majority (99%) of animals and nearby all plants, cannot maintain a constant internal body, environment, are called .conformers.. e.g.,
(i) In invertebrates, pisces, amphibians and reptiles, the body temperature changes with the surrounding temperature.
(ii) The osmotic concentrations of body fluids of aquatic animals change with those of surrounding water or osmotic concentrations, and such animals are called osmoconformers.
(iii) Thermoregulation is energetically expensive for many organisms e.g. small animals like shrews and humming birds (a) heat loss or heat gain is a function of surface area e.g., small animals have large surface area relative to their volume and lose body heat very fast when it is cold outside. These animals and plants simply adapt themselves. They have not evolved to become regulators. Then they have to spend much energy to generate body heat through metabolism. It is the reason why very small animals are rarely found in polar regions (b) Some species have the ability to regulate, but only over a limited range of environmental conditions beyond which the organisms usually adapt themselves and have two other alternatives either to migrate or suspend if the unfavourable external conditions remain only for a short time. (Any one example).