Temperatures Effect on Goldfish Respiration Kaylynn Lawless with Carley Eshleman, Danielle Sievert, and Sarah Lewis BIOL 152-22 Instructor: Jack Anjier September 17, 2014 INTRODUCTION Goldfish are typically seen as household pets that have no real purpose. However, goldfish have a major purpose in the world of science because of their respiration process. Respiration is the exchange of gases with the current environment and scientist use this to understand how food is oxidized to make energy. Animals whose body temperature remains constant no matter if there is a change in temperature are called endotherms. But animals whose body temperature depends primarily on the environment’s temperature are called ectotherms. Goldfish body temperatures change with the temperature of the water; this makes them an example of aquatic ectotherms. There are two metabolic tactics used by aquatic ectotherms when in harsh low temperatures: one causes metabolic rates to decrease which will decrease oxygen requirements, the other causes them to maintain all levels of activity by an increase of food and oxygen consumption by extra enzymes. Goldfish respiration will be tested as the temperature changes from room temperature to ten degrees Celsius in this experiment. The alternate hypothesis as the temperature of the water decreases, the amount of breaths per minute will decrease also. The null hypothesis as the temperature of the water decreases, the amount of breaths per minute will stay constant. …show more content…
Two glass beakers had approximately 100mL of room temperature water and a goldfish in each. The other two beakers were plastic and one contained more room temperature water while the other was filled with iced