The circle of life: cyclic molecules increase the rate of heart’s function as opposed to acyclic molecules among Daphnia magna

Abstract

Daphnia magna’s heart rate has been seen to differ with the use of certain solutions. During this experiment we showed how acyclic and cyclic molecules cause a different heart rate in Daphnia magna. We hypothesized that the reason that cells produce more action potentials is because they may have higher levels of acyclic molecules compared to cyclic molecules. The reason being, they are “simpler” and they are not as likely to bind to molecules during the action potential process. This was done by obtaining the bpm (beats per minute) ofDaphnia magna before and after soaking them in MSG (monosodium glutamate-an acyclic molecule) and phenylephrine (a cyclic molecule) solutions. We found that there is the average percent change among the Daphnia magna that were soaked in the MSG solution resulted in a 9.54% change and average percent change among the Daphnia magna that were soaked in the phenylephrine solution resulted in a –17.0% change (Table 1). This confirmed our hypothesis however, other studies say otherwise. We also believe that there could be many other possibilities for the results we received.