Epinephrine on the Heart Rate of Daphnia

The Daphnia is a crustacean, also knows as the ‘water flea’, widespread in lakes and ponds. The average size of a single Daphnia is three millimeters. They are directly linked to other crustaceans like crabs, shrimps, and lobsters (BioMedia, 2003).

Even though this animal is minuscule they are needed for the survival of other aquatic life. Daphnia produce little algae cells that change sun energy into food. When other animals, like trout, consume them this energy is passed on (BioMedia, 2003).

Daphnia are also ectothermic, or cold-blooded. They do not draw heat from their own metabolism, which is called homeothermic. Instead they must get it from an outside source. They regulate their body temperature by soaking up heat from the environment around it (Campbell et al, 2003).

In this experiment there are many reasons why the Daphnia is used. One reason is that they are very responsive to the variations in water. Daphnia are also very cheap to raise outside of their natural environment. Another reason that Daphnia make a great organism for the testing is that they grow and mature in a matter of days

If warm water was added and the organism was homeothermic their heart rate would however rise. When homeothermic organisms get hot their heart rate increases and their sweat glands become active. This has a cooling affect on the body. It is done to help save the body because if it gets overheated it can cause damage to organs, and even death if it is for a prolonged amount of time. After the body cools itself through sweating it would then lower its heart rate and the sweating would stop, because the main goal is to keep the body as close to constant temperature as possible (Campbell et al, 2003).

The increase in water temperature will increase heart rate of the Daphnia and the decrease in water temperature will decrease the heart rate of the Daphnia

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