Daphnia Heart Rate Lab Report

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Measuring the Heart Rate of Daphnia

Daphnia is the name of a group of small, aquatic crustaceans commonly called 'water flies'. Because their exoskeletons are clear it is possible to watch daphnia hearts without cutting them open. This also allows the changes in daphnia heart rate to be studied quite easily.

Hypothesis

I predict that a daphnia should have a heartbeat of 190 to 200 per minute. However this would also be dependent of the room temperature as daphnias are cold blooded animals, they do not thermo regulate which means that their body temperature is the same as the water they are floating in.

Daphnia is a group of small, aquatic crustaceans commonly called 'water flies'. Because …show more content…

I will do this by placing the water flea under a microscope and count its heartbeat. I will be able to do this because the water flea is translucent and I will be able to see its heart beating. I will do it for fifteen seconds, then multiply the result by four to get a minute worth.

Method

Using a seeker place a small blob of grease in the cavity slide and smear it thinly in the cavity. Place a small drop of water in the slide and then transfer a large daphnia into the drop of water. Carefully place a cover slip over the cavity. Allow the animal to settle for about 5 minutes, in order for the daphnia to adapt the temperature and the limited space.

Locate the hear and count the heart beat for 15 seconds. Multiply by 4 to give the rate per minute. Repeat several times. Return the daphnia to the container and repeat using at least two other similar sized animals. Collect the class results. Record your results as a table.

All counts should be made as quickly as possible as the daphnia may not be able to survive in the new environment. Temperature will …show more content…

This is shown by the histogram which I have plotted with the results collected above. The histogram shows that there is a wide range of heartbeats per minute. However there is one anomaly which the daphnia that was observed who has only an average of 81 bpm, this might be at an old age or ill which lead to a rather small heartbeat per minute compare to others. There were most daphnias with their heart beat between 195-200 bpm, and from the histogram, it also suggested a range of heart beat per minute for all the daphnias that were observed, the range is 135-253 bpm.

The results were also used to calculate the mean, mode and median. It shows that the average heart beat per minute of all the daphnias studied are 192 bpm. The median of the frequency lies in the group of 196-200 bpm, which fits well with the average as well as the histogram. As the group has the highest bar of the histogram. The

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