How Does Temperature Affect Respiration Rates of Beetles?
Melissa Smith, Bob Schwander, Garth CU-Boulder, 2006 In our project we tested the affects of temperature on the respiration rate of Darkling beetles. Since temperature causes the kinetic energy of enzymes to change, we hypothesized that the temperature inside of the gas chamber would greatly affect the rate of respiration of the Darkling beetle. To test this hypothesis we placed 3 Darkling beetles in a gas chamber and attached a carbon dioxide probe. For each trial we used the same 3 beetles to ensure accurate results. For the first trial we took 3 Darkling beetles, placed them in the gas chamber and placed 2 high intensity lights above them to warm the chamber to 28 C. We then measured the levels of CO2 in the chamber for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, we let the beetles return back to room temperature. We then set up an ice bath to cool them to 23 C. We placed the gas chamber inside the ice bath. We then collected data for 5 minutes. We repeated this process a total of 3 times with the
