Goldfish Temperature Regulation

Temperature regulation is one of many aspects of homeostasis, the ability to maintain an organism’s internal environment at a comfortable temperature. An organism can be a temperature regulator or a temperature conformer. An endotherm is a regulating organism that maintains homeostasis by producing its own heat thus keeping the internal environment stable regardless of the conditions of the external environment. This means that the metabolism of an endotherm is always at a constant, rapid rate. An ectothermic organism is a conformer which means they can’t produce their own body heat metabolically which causes their internal environment to fluctuate with the external environmental conditions. This concludes that the metabolism of an ectotherm also fluctuates with depending on the external environment. I hypothesize that under controlled conditions, if I take an

The lack of breaths per minute as the temperature is decreased indicates that goldfish are ectothermic organisms. Although other environmental factors may play a small role in the respiration rate of aquatic ectotherms, the experiment provided evidence that water temperature was greatly responsible. The biological significance of the experiment was that scientists may conclude that many other freshwater fish become inactive during the winter months due to the drop in water temperature. The results of the experiment may be applied to the real world by concluding that perhaps water temperature is responsible for why sport fishing in Louisiana occurs predominantly in the spring and summer months; the water is warmer and the fish require more food to maintain their respiration and metabolism. This experiment could have been adapted or modified to show that as respiration rate decreases, so does the fish’s metabolism