Paramecium Lab Report

The control experiment showed the average velocity of paramecium remain around 90.00 µms-1 throughout the 1800 seconds, due to the large groups of cilia on the surface of paramecium which beat simultaneously in a controlled, coordinated motion allowing them to maintain a steady velocity. Figure One shows that in the presence of Toxin A, Nickel, the average velocity of the paramecium begins at 80.00 µms-1, slightly lower than that of the control experiment, and decreases gradually until 1800 seconds to 0 µms-1. Studies have shown that nickel at concentrations above 0.1mM inhibits ciliary activity and subsequently stops the movement of paramecium (Larsen and Satir, 1991). The data in Figures 4 and 1 support this conclusion as in the presence

The velocity then decreased rapidly until 1440 seconds, when the average velocity reached 0. The presence of alcohol reduced the velocity at a faster rate than nickel, as the average velocity reached 0µms-1 at 1440 seconds in comparison to 1800 seconds in the presence of nickel. It can be inferenced from Figure Two that alcohol also has a negative effect on the cilia of paramecium as the average velocity was again greatly decreased in comparison to that of the control. When exposed to high concentrations of alcohol cilia movement is decreased, yet is stimulated at low concentrations (Sisson, 2007). This is consistent with the data presented in Figure Two as when exposed to the alcohol at a high concentration of 10M, velocity decreased. As shown in Figure 5, the number of stationary paramecium increased over time to a peak 25 stationary paramecium at 1800 seconds. However, this is less than under exposure to Nickel, in which reached there is a peak of 29 stationary paramecium after 1800 seconds. Therefore, Nickel caused there to be more stationary paramecium than