CAFFEINE AFFECT

Caffeine Affect on the Heart Rate of Daphnia

Caffeine Affect the Heart Rate of Daphnia

Introduction

Background information

Daphnia comes from the kingdom of Animalia. Its phylum is Arthropoda. Its characteristics are joint limbs and exoskeleton. Its size is 0.2 to 5 mm in length. Its diet is based on algae, bacteria and smaller crustaceans. Thiers habitat is found on streams, rivers, ponds and lakes. Caffeine is found in coffee and cocoa (webmd.com, 2011). It is a stimulant and drug at the same time. A few plants evolve caffeine as a natural insecticide which paralyzes and kills insects. It is the most consumed psychoactive substance all over the world. Its affect on the central nervous system and muscles is as a stimulant. It is a reason to increase dopamine and serotonin in brain which causes alertness and happiness.

Objective

The main objective of this study is to analyze the effect of caffeine on heart rate. The caffeine taken for the study is green tea, black tea, espresso and decaf coffee.

Hypothesis

The hypothesis of this study is that the caffeine does affect the heart rate of daphnia. The alternative or null hypothesis is that caffeine doesn't produce any affect on daphnia in terms of its heart rate or blood pressure. The independent variable is the caffeine. The dependent variable is heart rate of daphnia. The controlled variables are the caffeine consumption.

Materials and methods

Materials, procedures, level of treatment, replicas, and experimental conditions

As a control system daphnia was used to research the changes in heart rate after the consumption of caffeine. Four types of caffeine were determined which are green tea, decaf coffee, black tea and espresso. One row of control was titled separately because it interprets the heart rate without the consumption of coffee. Four individual specimens were created and developed to analyze the caffeine consumption with heart rate. The caffeine was dissolved in Daphnia in four individual specimens. The results were measured before and after the caffeine consumption. Four responses are produced to develop the experiment. The tests' results are derived from the response rate of daphnia(Robertson, 2005). Other variables that were necessary to be controlled to make this experiment work were volume of solutions, and size of daphnia, stress of daphnia, temperature, and time of acclimatization. The equipment used to conduct this experiment is cavity slide, stop clock, counter, microscope, test tubes, distilled water and dropping pipettes.

Types of observation, measurement and control

The method to ...