Elodea Essay

Elodea is an aquatic plant originally from Brazil. It is now available in temperate regions of every continent in the world, except Antarctica. It is used in varieties of experiments, but most importantly, photosynthesis. Although there are different species of Elodea plants, the Elodea genus is an excellent plant to use to test photosynthesis because it is a highly oxygenating plant. This means that one can observe the plant and tell that is photosynthesizing because bubbles form when oxygen is produced (Berkeley). Elodea plants survive during the winter through turions, which are the buds of the aquatic plant that are said to be specialized “overwintering buds” (Global Invasive Species Database 2010). These buds allow Elodea to survive during the arctic months that would kill off most aquatic plants. With Elodea still being able to survive the winter months, they would still need to obtain energy from …show more content…
This could be the result of frost protection mechanisms (Sperling et. al 2015). However, the cellular respiration for crickets decreased in low temperature. Cricket’s cellular respiration decreases not because it is an animal, but because it is cold blooded (Aerni, Jaeckel 2014). It is plausible that cellular respiration increases in lower temperatures because cellular respiration happens at night. Usually, the temperatures at night decrease significantly, compared to the day, which is when photosynthesis occurs. The purpose of this experiment is to test if plants can photosynthesize and respire in cold temperature. The test will conduct in a room temperature, and in a below room temperature. Elodea can withstand cold temperatures, but at a slower pace. On the other hand, aerobic respiration is less likely to occur. However, if optimum temperature is reached, the rate of photosynthesis and aerobic respiration will be zero because at this point, enzymes start to