Nicotine Decreases and Caffeine Increases Short-Term Heart Rate in Daphnia Magna

Abstract

Caffeine and nicotine are both stimulates that elevate heart rate in humans. We tested the effects of nicotine and caffeine on Daphnia to see if they would have similar reactions as humans. We choose to test both nicotine and caffeine to ensure that daphnia are a viable comparison for testing drugs that will be used by humans. We recorded the initial and final heart rate of the Daphnia in order to see the percent change after each of the chemicals. We expect these findings to set a precedent for future drug testing on Daphnia that can be used to predict result in humans.