Acclimated Crayfish: Metabolic Compensation

Compensation is the maintenance of the levels of physiological processes, despite changes in temperature. This experiment was coordinated to determine whether crayfish will show metabolic compensation when acclimated to various temperatures. The findings of this study show that temperature had no effect on crayfish oxygen consumption. The oxygen consumption for both the warm and cold acclimated crayfish was almost the same, despite the opposite direction of the temperature change. The results of this study therefore support the hypothesis. Measurements from 0 to 30 minutes were excluded from our data because when compared to the data from times 30-60 of both cold and warm acclimated crayfish, it was evident that the crayfish were undergoing physiological stress. This is likely due to how the crayfish were in the same tank compensating for two weeks and were then moved to conduct experiment. There is an expected time where the crayfish experience stress in a new environment which is not reflective of their adaption to new temperatures. In the case of the crayfish worked with in this experiment they took longer than usual to adapt to their new environment The oxygen consumption levels increased during the 30-60 minute time period for both the warm and cold acclimated crayfish due to the absent of threat, so they ended up …show more content…
The temperature of water is directly related to how much oxygen is in the water. For this simple reason if a crayfish is acclimated to 20 °C were acutely exposed to 10 °C the most likely result would be that the oxygen consumption would increase because of the decrease in temperature. Under the opposite circumstances a crayfish acclimated to 10°C were acutely exposed to 20°C would most likely show a decrease in oxygen consumption as a result of the increase in