Effect of Temperature on Dubia Cockroaches (Blaptica Dubia) CO2 levels

Abstract

Abstract: 

What we chose to study for this investigation questioned whether or not a change in temperature would have an effect on the CO₂ levels of Dubia Cockroaches. We believe that if we expose Dubia Cockroaches to a colder temperature than we will find that they produce less CO₂. We predict that in a colder chamber the cockroaches will produce less CO₂ than they would produce in a warmer chamber. We tested this hypothesis by placing  4.3-5 grams of cockroaches into three different temperature chambers: 15℃, 23.8℃, and 30℃. The cockroaches were placed into the chamber for 5 minutes while the data was being recorded, we did this 3 times with each of the different temperatures with 5 minute breaks between each trial. We kept data for how much CO₂ was produced, and the initial value of CO₂ so that way we would be able to find and calculate the metabolic rate. In our experiment we noticed that the metabolic rates for both 30℃ and 15℃ were both lower than the metabolic rate of the control group 23℃. What we have found does not support our hypothesis. We expected higher temperatures to have higher CO₂ levels but we found that they have lower CO₂ levels than the control groups have.