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Reaction Paper On Daphnia Magna

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Environmental pollution has become a rising problem around the world with an increase of combustion of fossil fuels becoming more prevalent in the past 100 years. Copious amounts of menacing chemicals, through these processes, thus have been able to contaminate the environment causing adverse effects on not only the environment itself, but on human health too (Kampa and Castanas 2008). Daphnia Magna are miniscule crustaceans with qualities that are key in the laboratory: they are economically cheap, low maintenance, and transparent. Because of these properties, Daphnia are essential in being able to see the effects of chemical agents on heart rate (Corotto et al. 2010). Furthermore, Daphnia may also serve as a model system to help aid us in measuring the effects of contaminants on Daphnia just as we would in humans. In this experiment we analyzed the heart rate of the Daphnia when given caffeine, ethanol, vinegar, triclosan, and sodium phosphate in order to explore how Daphnia magna behaved when exposed to potential contaminants. The five agents utilized in this experiment included caffeine, ethanol, vinegar, triclosan, and sodium phosphate. Caffeine and ethanol produce clear effects on the heart rate of the Daphnia. Previous literature has found that in 5% and 10% concentrations, ethanol tends to be a depressant as it substantially decreases the heart rate of the Daphnia (Corotto et al. 2010). Caffeine on the other hand acts as a stimulant as it proves to have about a
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