The Metabolic Rate of Cockroaches over Varying Temperatures

Abstract

The effects of temperature on metabolic rate of ectotherms is an experiment that has had a significant amount of different results. One of the most common ectotherms used in these experiments is the Madagascar Hissing Cockroach, which is also the animal that was used in this experiment. The hypothesis tested was when temperature decreases, the metabolic rate would decrease as well due to conservation of energy, and it will increase when the temperature increases because in similar studies, the cockroach’s activity levels were higher than they were at colder temperatures. In this experiment, the difference in CO₂ levels were averaged between two trials as well as the temperature. This was completed for each temperature variable. The data collected in this experiment suggests that there are more factors to consider that affect the metabolic rate of ectotherms.