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Daphnia pulex

An example of a daphnia under a microscope

This article will show you how to measure a daphnia's heartbeat. This a simple process and is easily done by all ages and of all levels of knowledge.


What will I need?[]

  • A few daphnia
  • Microscope and slides
  • Pipette
  • Paper and pen
  • Stopwatch
  • Second person
  • Calculator

Method[]

  1. Set up you microscope ready.
  2. Then, using your pipette, suck up a daphnia and put it on a slide. You may wish to remove some water so it is more clear under the microscope but leave enough for the daphnia to survive.
  3. Put the daphnia under the microscope and watch for it's heart beat. You can normally see this on what seems to be its back. It looks like a small rise and fall. If you cannot see anything or the daphnia will not come in your view for a while you may need to remove some water. If this does not work try it with another daphnia
  4. Once you find the heartbeating get your second person to start the stopwatch. Tell them to stop it at 20 seconds
  5. Then with your pen tap hard dots going in an 'S' shape on paper for every time you see the heart beat.
  6. After, on your calculator, times the amount of dots you marked by 3 to get your beats per minutes (BPM).
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