Mass Mass Baby: The effect body mass has on respiration rat

Abstract

This investigation examines the theory that larger ectotherms have higher respiration rates than smaller ectotherms. Our study attempts to determine if there is a correlation between the body mass and respiration rate of worms. Previous investigations have studied correlations between body mass and respiration rate in other ectotherms (Block et al. 2016), but none have experimented with worms specifically. Our goal in this investigation is to confirm (or disprove) that worms share characteristics with other ectotherms concerning body mass and respiration rate. To accomplish our goal, we set up an experiment in which we measured the respiration rates of two species of worms and then compared the respiration rate of the larger species to the respiration rate of the smaller species. We concluded that there is a correlation between the body mass and respiration rate of worms; therefore, it is safe to assume that worms share metabolic characteristics with other ectotherms.