INTRODUCTION Undoubtedly, not just from reading text books and sitting in a biology class, but from observations; one can conclude that there are several things that makes organisms living. One of the most important and obvious one’s is respiration. However, it goes beyond intaking air and then releasing it into the environment. The respiratory system is a complex regulatory mechanism that aids in maintaining homeostasis. It has even been adapted to better suit the organisms that inhibit different environments. With this is mind, how would one suppose an organism that lives in an aquatic environment receive the oxygen necessary to regulate their homeostatic state? Luckily, oxygen can be extracted from air and water through diffusion, with …show more content…
Gold fish serve a great purpose in examining respiratory functions due to their relatively small size of two inches, and the fact that it is easier to manipulate their environments to test which factors have a significant effect on their respiratory system. Fish have a unique quality, they have the ability to increase gas exchange by increasing the ventilation of the gills, which is effective when fish are active and require more oxygen from their environment (Maina, 2002). In addition, the temperature of their living environment can also damper with the fish’s prosses of respiration, as it affects the metabolic rate of the organisms, thus, hindering the amount of oxygen that is needs to be absorbed through the gills to be used in the metabolic functions that provide energy for the fish (Farrell & Steffensen, pg. 203). There are other metabolic stressors that often affect the metabolic rate of fish, such as the concentration of oxygen in the environment and even the size of the organism as well (Cooke & Philipp, 2009). For these reasons, the respiratory functions of the fish are tested by change in temperature, and the levels of oxygen concentration and oxygen consumption are monitored to illustrate how these factors affect the ventilation rate of the fish. It is hypothesized that the rate of ventilation of the fish will decrease when exposed to higher temperature due to the increase in oxygen diffusion in the water, while the ventilation rate will increase in cooler temperature because of the decrease of oxygen availability in the