Water is essential to life because its unique properties facilitate a vast number of biochemical processes that enable all organisms to exist. Maintenance of proper water concentration in the body is thus a vital activity. Colonization of terrestrial habitats placed organisms in desiccating environments that emphasized problems of water balance. The procurement and economical use of water has since been a central organizing theme in biology and has shaped the morphology, physiology, behavior, and spatial distribution of organisms. In hot, and environments like North American deserts, organisms are faced with especially challenging abiotic conditions characterized by variable and often extreme temperatures, intense solar radiation, [...]
