Investigation To determine The Effect Of Carbon Dioxide On The Ventilation Rate Of Locusts.

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Investigation To determine The Effect Of Carbon Dioxide On The Ventilation Rate Of Locusts.

Introduction

To determine what effect carbon dioxide would have on the ventilation rate of locusts the following method was used. A Locust was placed head first into a boiling tube and held in by a piece of cotton wool. The boiling tube was laid flat onto the desk, the ventilation rate of the locust measured by counting the swellings of the abdomen which occurred with each inspiration. The level of carbon dioxide was then increased by breathing into the test tube for 1 second. The locust was allowed 20 seconds to adjust to the new concentration and then a reading was taken at this concentration. This was repeated using breaths of lengths, 2,3,4,5 seconds and also repeated in triplicate.

Results

The below table shows the number of abdominal swellings observed from the locust in a 30 second period under different concentrations of carbon dioxide due to differing lengths of a human exhalation into the locust environment.

TABLE 1

Length of breath (sec)

2

3

Average taken

from 3 observations

0

25

24

26

26

33

32

25

30

2

33

28

30

31

3

35

36

36

35.6

4

39

40

38

39

5

44

43

40

42.3

TABLE 2

Length of breath (sec)

Average number of

breaths per minute
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Difference between length of human breath and rate of locust ventilation

D2

0

52

52

2704

60

59

3481

2

62

60

3600

3

71.3

68.3

4664.89

4

78

74

5476

5

84.6

79.6

6336.16

? D2 = 26262.05

The above table shows Spearman's rank calculation and the average number of locust breaths per minute. It shows a high positive value and so shows a strong positive correlation of data.

Conclusion ...

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