The Effects of Increased Temperature and Increased Sucrose on the CO2 Production Rate of Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Abstract

Cellular respiration is an enzymatically controlled breakdown of an energy rich compound such as a carbohydrate to carbon dioxide. Our hypothesis is: if temperature is increased, then the rate of carbon dioxide production in the presence of sucrose will increase because chemical reactions occur faster at higher temperatures and adding sucrose will cause CO₂ production rate to increase.  In order to test our hypothesis, we set up two different experiments: one to test the effect of sucrose and one to test the effect of ambient temperature. Analyzing the results of each experiment and comparing the results will reflect the separate effects that ambient temperature and sucrose have on the CO₂ production rate. On the tests using sucrose, our independent variable was the amount of sucrose, the dependent variable was the rate of CO₂ production, and the control was the absence of sucrose. When we tested the effects of temperature, our independent variable was ambient temperature, the dependent variable was the rate of CO₂ production, and the control was the group at room temperature. The first experiment showed that as sucrose concentration increased, the rate of CO₂ production decreased. The second experiment showed that as temperature increased, the rate of CO₂ production increased as well.