Final answer:
Water movement, determined by osmosis, can cause slugs to dehydrate and die when exposed to salt, while the same process allows dried fruits to rehydrate, swell, and soften when soaked in water.
Step-by-step explanation:
Water movement can lead to different effects in living organisms due to a process called osmosis, which is the diffusion of water across a semipermeable membrane from a region with lower solute concentration to one with higher solute concentration. When you sprinkle salt over a slug, the high concentration of salt outside the slug causes water to move out of the slug's body to balance the concentrations. This results in dehydration and death of the slug. Conversely, when you rehydrate a dried fruit by soaking it in water, water moves into the cells of the fruit to equilibrate the solute concentration, causing the fruit to swell and soften.