Effect of caffeine on Daphnia heart rate

Independent:
caffeine concentration
Dependent
: heart rate of
Daphnia

Variables to be controlled:
1) Temperature
2) Volume of solutions
3) Stress of Daphnia Size of
Daphnia
4) Time of acclimatisation

Equipment required:
Microscope,
counter,
cavity slide,
dropping pipettes,
stop clock,
pond water,
test tubes,
stop clock

Procedure:
1)make up a range of caffeine solutions of different concentrations and a control
solution with no caffeine.
2)transfer one daphnia into the dimple of a cavity slide and use some cotton fibres to
immobilize daphnia..
3)place slide onto stage of light microscope.
4) place drop of caffeine solution onto daphnia.
5) count the # of heart beats in 10 seconds and multiply by 6 to get per minute.6)
repeat 10 times with different daphnia with same concentration.
7) repeat using other concentrations but keep temp the same.
8) compare results
Outcome: as caffeine concentration increased, heart rate increased

Evaluation:

1) counting of heartbeats can be inaccurate using pen and paper.

2)
overheating of daphnia may occur if exposed too long to light of the light of

the microscope which affects the validity since heart rate increases due to heat
not caffeine.
3) heartbeat change can be due to daphnia attempting to escape cottion fibres.
4) Ensure that the same size and shape of daphnia remains constant to make
sure that this does not affect validity.
5) may be considered cruel as too much caffeine can kill daphnia.