How Does Caffeine And Nicotine Affect Daphnia Magna?

This experiment is to see The Affect of Caffeine on Daphnia. Daphnia is also known as a water flea. It is a distant relative of crabs and shrimps. (Marshall Cavendish, 2002) Daphnia have a hard external skeleton with jointed appendages and limbs. The head contains a large central eye which is made of two eyes joined together. Daphnia has two pairs of antennae which are used for swimming. Each daphnia has five pairs of limbs. These limbs lie in a certain space under the body bounded by the carapace. (Marshall Cavendish, 2002) A carapace is a hard upper shell or chitinous outer covering on the back of some animals. The daphnia is well preserved because of its shells which are composed of chitin. The usual size of this microorganism is about 0.2-0.3 mm; they look like flat disks. Their bodies are divided into three parts – head, thorax, and abdomen. The head is typically dome-shaped with five pairs of appendages. Among these five are two pairs of antennae; there is a small pair and a larger pair. The smaller pair of antennae serves as a sensory function and the larger one is used for swimming. The other three appendages’ purpose is to secure food they intake. (Michael Hutchins, 2003) The thorax holds four to six pairs of legs that are used for gathering food, filtering water, or grasping mates. There are over 400 species of daphnia and they are distributed worldwide. Daphnia uses their thoracic legs to produce a constant current of water; this allows them to filter food

Although with the addition of caffeine 1% and ethanol 1% the rate of the heart decreased and increased. The addition of the caffeine improved the daphnias heart rate by 20 beats, meaning its overall heart rate was 236 beats per minute. Whilst with the accumulation of the ethanol the daphnia’s heart rate dropped dramatically by 40 beats and only measured in at 176 beats per minute.

The purpose of this lab was to determine the normal heart rate of a Daphnia Magna and decipher the different effects that various substances had on it. A Daphnia Magna is a species of water fleas and can be located in the Northern United Sates against the coastline of the Atlantic in rocky pools. The water flea’s habitat consists of rivers and streams, temporary pools, lakes and ponds, and brackish water. The Daphnia Magna range from two to five millimeters in length and are shaped like a kidney bean (Elenbaas, Molly). Relating to this lab experiment we learned in class that the normal heart rate is measured anywhere between 60 and 100 beats per minute (BPM). If your resting BPM is measured at a level above the number 100 it is known as Tachycardia. This term indicates that your heart level has exceeded the normal range. Also if your heart rate is indicated below 60 then it is called Bradycardia, which means the heart is beating slower than normal. When your heart rate is affected by a substance in the body it is called a Chronotropic agent. When the heart rate decreases because of a substance or chemical it is called a negative Chronotropic and when it is affected oppositely by increasing it is known as a positive Chronotropic agent. In this experiment we added many different substances to the slide on which the water flea was placed to calculate the increase or decrease in its heart rate due to the ingredients in the substances. The first substance used was

From figure 5 it can be seen that before the addition of epinephrine, Daphnia had an average heart rate of 277.663+/-18 heart beats per minutes. However, when epinephrine was added, the average heart rate was decreased to 291.467+/-57 heart beats per minute. However, after performing Mann-Whitney U test, it was found that after the addition of epinephrine, no significant difference was observed in Daphnia's heart beats.

The following was the procedure used by the team that introduced chemicals into the environment of the Daphnia. First a zero reading was taken before any chemicals were introduced. The zero reading was an observation of the Daphnia’s heart rate before any substances were administered. All fluids were drawn off the slide using the corner of a Kimwipe. Then two drops of two percent alcohol solution were dropped onto the Daphnia. After a minute a heart rate reading was taken. The same procedure, including using the Kimwipe to draw off previous solution, was then used with four, six, eight, and ten percent solutions. A heart rate reading was taken after each solution was introduced.

This lab covered the effects of caffeine, nicotine, caffeine extract and nicotine extract on the pulsation rates of Lumbriculus variegatus, commonly known as blackworms. The circulatory system consists of the heart and the blood vessels that circulate blood throughout the organism’s body. Blackworms do not possess a respiratory system or a heart, thus they circulate their blood through contractions of the blood vessels. The pulsation rate was observed along the dorsal blood vessel near the posterior end of the worm to give better readings. The various drugs were exposed to the black worm and the effects it had on the pulsation rate were observed. The results found in this experiment could also relate to the effects of these

The effects of caffeine and alcohol on daphnia are expressive of whether these substances are harmful or beneficial to the organism. By understanding the results of this experiment, it may also be understood how these substances effect humans. In this study, one daphnia was exposed to increasing levels of alcohol, while the other was exposed to increasing levels of caffeine, each in order to test the hypothesis that when given amounts of caffeine and alcohol, the daphnia will be affected the same way a human would. The effect of each substance was measured by the daphnia’s heart rate one minute after the substance was added. Results reveal that alcohol slows the heart rate, while caffeine increases heart rate. Furthermore, caffeine shows a

To conduct this study a culture of living Daphnia were collected from a nearby natural water source area.

Daphnia magna also commonly known as water fleas are tiny freshwater crustaceans. They are filter feeders, and can survive in culture by eating algae, bacteria, or yeast. They feed plankton and detritus. There are about 1.5-5mm long. Daphnia Magna have a brood chamber where eggs are located. Daphnia magna are located in freshwater areas throughout northern hemisphere and south Africa.

Then using a disposable pipette we placed two drops of room temperature water (21 degrees) on top of the Daphnia. Then placing it careful under the microscope with a for 15 seconds using a tally counter and clicked away how many heart beats we observed and did this three times for three trials, in between the times would give the daphnia a two minute recovery period. We then would process the trials information and calculate an average. After the information calculated we then  multiplied our results by four to see the average heart beats per minute with room temperature water. We gave the daphnia five minute to recover then went on to proceed with two drops of hot water (40 degrees celsius) placed on top of the Daphnia using the pipette. Again three trials for 15 second using the tally clicker following after a two minute break. The same followed for the cold water (0 degree celsius) placing two drops on top of the Daphnia administered by pipette. In between the transitional water temperature trials we then cleaned up the excess water before placing new drops of water by gently soaking up the water with kimwipes. After five minutes we tallied the heartbeats of the Daphnia before administering the epinephrine. Then again gently gave two doses of epinephrine using a new pipette. Then after we observed and tallying the heart beats before administering the epinephrine, three times again recording our results then averaging it. Then we placed two drops of the epinephrine on top of the daphnia, tallying the heartbeats and recording and calculating our trial results. Then after two minutes we observed and tallied the effects after the epinephrine had been used.  Each trial again consisted of observation under the microscope, tallying and observing the behavior internally and externally of the

The heart serves an important purpose within the body, pumping blood throughout the circulatory system to supply all parts of the body with vital nutrients and molecules. It pumps oxygen and nutrient rich blood to be exchanged for carbon dioxide, which is then pumped to the lungs and eliminated from the body. The movement of blood throughout the body is due to the heart’s ability to push blood along the circulatory system at a steady, unfaltering rate. This rate, known as heart rate, is regulated and can be altered at a moment’s notice by signaling within the body and heart itself. In vertebrates, the autonomic nervous system controls and regulates heart rate. The autonomic nervous system is divided into two subunits, the sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic nerve that innervates the heart is the vagus nerve. In this laboratory experiment, the regulation of heart rate was observed by studying a certain breed of turtle, the Red-eared Slider (Trachemys scripta elegans). Both chemical and electric signaling can influence the components of the nervous

From these results it is impossible to determine the effect of nicotine on blood flow. No correlation can be found between our results and the results of the other groups. Many factors may have contributed to this incongruent data. Likely taking the fish out of its natural environment triggered its sympathetic response causing blood flow to

Burton, B.R. (1998). Detection of Nicotine in Foods and Plant Materials. Journal of food science. 53 , 1572-1573.

Nicotine, one of the most unusual psychoactive drugs known, and the primary pharmacological agent of addiction in cigarettes, triggers powerful physical and psychological reactions in species as diverse as cockroaches and humans.

Drugs have a poor effect on Tetrahymena cells. Previous research has used dibucaine, a type of drug that illustrates the fact that drugs remove cilia from the cells (Thompson, 1974, 255). This gives a sense that drugs remove the cilia on the Tetrahymena cell. When the Tetrahymena cell is exposed to a lot nicotine, Tetrahymena tends to stop feeding. This was proven in prior studies which suggested that phagocytosis is disturbed when cells are exposed to nicotine (Pomorski, 2004, 1994). More nicotine in cells is proportionally related to more cilia loss. This was found to be true when researchers studied the effect of nicotine in mice. They realized that mice exposed to smoke for 1.5 months had similar amounts of cilia for a mouse that was not exposed to nicotine, while a mouse exposed to nicotine for 12 months had almost a complete loss of cilia (Simet et al., 2010, 637). Cilia length decreases as more nicotine gets into the cell over time as seen in smokers which affects functions of the cell (Leopold et al., 2009,5). Different organisms exposed to nicotine produce similar effects to that of Tetrahymena. The unicellular eukaryote Amoeba proteus went through changes when exposed to nicotine like contractions, protrusions and blebbing and then the