The Metabolic Rate Of Goldfish

This lab was about how a goldfish’s breathing rate changes in different temperatures in order to maintain homeostasis.

Ectothermic animals are animals whose body temperature is affected by their surroundings. This means that if the environment is cold the animal will be cold. If the environment is warm the animal will be warm. This is because the animal doesn’t have the capability of regulating its body systems to keep a constant body temperature. When an ectothermic animal is cold, its heart rate will lower. When the animal is warmer, the heart rate will raise – as long as the temperature isn’t sufficiently high to harm the animal. (Campbell, 2005)

At the conclusion of the experiment, the two hypotheses were reviewed. Because the water temperature did affect the normal respiration patterns of the goldfish, the null hypothesis was disregarded and the alternative hypothesis was accepted. From the results of this experiment, it was concluded that although other environmental factors could play

2. You have measured the rate at which a fish breaths at various temperatures by counting the rate at which its gills open. The data table is shown below. Create a line graph depicting the results.

Freeman (2008) furthers Eckert et al’s argument by stating that the actin filaments of the muscle cell in organisms are able to intake ATP (adenosine triphosphate) faster and will move the organism faster when higher temperatures are imposed. This is because of an increase in enzyme reaction rates (Freeman 2008). These arguments can be applied to our experiment to help explain the trends observed. It can be argued that as the Gammarus setosus experiences the cold treatments, the organ of Bellonci senses the cold temperature, which in turn signals the organism to preserve its energy to protect itself; therefore, the organism will swim slower. In addition, the enzymes in the muscle cells of the organism, when experiencing the cold treatments, will have decreased ability to carry out enzymatic reactions, therefore inhibiting the uptake of ATP, which will cause the organism to swim slowly. Conversely, as the organisms are put into the heated treatments, the organ of Bellonci senses the heat, and allows the organism to swim faster, since it does not have allocate as much of its energy towards survival. Furthermore, the enzymes in the cells will be able to catalyze reactions more quickly, therefore allowing the organism to swim faster. However, when the temperature of the surroundings is too high, the enzymes will denature, therefore, reducing the activity rate of

Temperature had a direct effect on oxygen consumption of crayfish, Orconectes propinquus. Crayfish acclimated to warm temperature (20 to 25 C) had a mean mass of 8.25g +/- 1.05. Crayfish acclimated to cold temperature (3 to 5 C) had a mean mass of 10.61g +/- 0.77. Oxygen consumption rates of 30-60 minute treatments were used and there was no significant difference between the two different treatments (t=0.48, df=58, P=0.70). The data from 0-30 minutes were not used because the crayfish were disrupted by transportation and the data were not normally distributed. The Q10 value was 1.05, representing that there was full compensation for oxygen consumption for the crayfish at two different acclimated temperatures. The oxygen consumption of crayfish was not affected significantly by two different temperatures (Figure 1).

The water in the hot bag was approximately 65° Celsius. We allowed the shrimp to move about for 30 minutes because we had the time. Every 10 minutes we replaced the hot water in the bag with fresh hot water because it was slowly cooling down. After the 30 minutes were up we closed the clamps and removed the hot and cold bags from the tubing and counted the number of shrimp in each section and recorded our results. We did not count any dead shrimp because that condition would obviously not be a condition they could survive in. In this part of the lab we measured the temperature of water from each section and recorded that number also. We did this by simply pouring the water from each section into 4 different test tubes and placing a thermometer in each.

In this activity two sets of experiments are performed to determine the rate of cellular respiration by measuring the amount of CO2 in fermentation tube. Larger the rate of cellular respiration, larger will be the amount of gas produced. To conduct the experiment yeast and water were added together at first. Yeast mixture was poured into the test tube and another test tube on the top. After flipping the tube upside down the amount of gas produced was observed at the top of Tube for about 10 minutes to determine the Cellular Respiration Rate.

It is usually a challenge to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea. Ordinarily, one has to consider one’s values as well as preferred consequences in order to make the better or best choice. In the short story, “What of This Goldfish, Would You Wish?” by Etgar Keret, Sergei Goralick faced a similar conundrum. As an aloof Russian expatriate fisherman in Jaffa, Israel, his only company is a magic three wish-granting fish. But having impulsively murdered Yonatan, Goralick had to decide whether to use his last wish to save the boy or keep his magic goldfish companion. Though he would have preferred the latter, Goralick made the better choice saving Yonatan as it matches his established humaneness and the consequences attached were more reasonable.

In this experiment, an oxygen-measuring probe was attached to an oxygen chamber in order to quantify oxygen consumption rate, which served as a substitute measure for metabolic rate. The oxygen-measuring probe provided real-time measurements of dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration present in the chamber water. The oxygen chamber was sealed to create a closed system so that over time, the oxygen levels would decrease as the goldfish respired and consumed the oxygen present in the water. The software LoggerLite was used to record real-time DO concentration measurements.

In this lab, we are going to try to answer the question, Does body size affect endotherms metabolic rates? This question is very controversial among scientists. They’ve only agreed on one thing, there are different scalings between animals, but they don 't know how that affects metabolism and why (Hoppler and Weibel 2005). Some scientist’s studies show that body size in endotherms does affect metabolism rate due to SA/V ratios. The ratios affect the endotherms metabolism based on how high or low the SA/V ratio is. An animal with a larger SA/V ratio puts off more heat to their environment. This results in smaller animals having to burn through their food more to maintain their body temperature (“Unit 4 Demos More on Metabolic Rate”). What led us to the formation of our experiment was the experiment performed in the article Smith et al. (2015). In

When compared to a similar study, a similar conclusion was made. In a study conducted by Gerristen, he studied if Daphnia would experience a positive or a negative thermotactic reaction when exposed to a variety of different temperatures. Once the experiment was completed, Gerristen was able to conclude that the Daphnia did indeed experience a negative thermotactic reaction and swam away from the cold stimuli. He claimed that these results were due to the Daphnia’s natural instinct to seek warmer water (Gerristen 1982).

Due to the miniature size of a Daphnia, biologists have had unique troubles with analysing the way the systems of the Daphnia function. Biologists have argued, that the circulatory system of a Daphnia relies on diffusion or convection. However, it has been decided that depending on the oxygen levels in the environment will affect the way that the circulatory system of the Daphnia functions. The levels of haemoglobin will also affect the functioning of the circulatory system in the water flea. Haemoglobin is a red blood cell, assisting the

Somewhat more precise descriptions can be made by using the terms poikilothermic and homoiothermic. The body temperature of poikllotherms is relatively variable, while that of homeotherms is relatively constant.

Four eggs that were previously soaked in vinegar were placed into four beakers with different levels of a glucose solution. The four beakers were filled with distilled water, 0.5M glucose, 1.5M glucose and 2.0M glucose. After the eggs were placed in the solutions, they were left for 60 minutes but weighed every 15 minutes to record whether there was an increase or a decrease in mass. The various masses were recorded as well as the percent change in mass. These were then recorded as line graphs. From this it was able to be determined if the egg had been in a hypotonic, hypertonic or isotonic solution, thus being able to determine if osmosis had occurred.