BIOL1002 Final Nutrition Report
The effect of nutrition on the activity of Artemia franciscana
Intro:
In most ecosystems, the availability of nutrition is the most limiting factor of population growth and activity (Fábregas, 1997). If there is a lack of food resources in a community or a lack of certain specific dietary requirements, then the physiology of that community and it’s fecundity should be noticeably affected. Nutrients like carbohydrates, proteins and fats are carried around the body, along with oxygen from the air, through the circulatory system throughout which metabolism uses oxygen to convert these nutrients into ATP for energy use (Johnson 1980). When an organism is experiencing starvation it is not receiving enough nutrients to support the normal rate of ATP and hence energy production and so slows all metabolic processes in the body in order to preserve energy for survival (Jacobstein and Gerken, 1989). With the decreased rate of metabolism there is less demand for oxygen and so the rate of oxygen consumption and overall activity of the organism slows with the rate of metabolism (Fábregas, 1998).
The study of the effect of specific diets on the activity of Artemia has been the subject of several experiments (Sick, 1976; Johnson, 1980; Fábregas et al ., 1996, 1998). Nutrition treatment has been shown to affect the activity rates of populations of Artemia. This experiment, through feeding two populations of Artemia different levels of algae and fish food for three weeks, we investigated the effect of nutrition on the activity of Artemia. The low nutrition population was fed algae on daily basis providing largely carbohydrates whereas the high nutrition population was fed daily ten times the amount of algae as the low nutrition population plus fish food which gave them an extra source of protein and nitrogen. During the experiment the length-specific oxygen consumption rate of the different populations was recorded and a video of each population was used on the
Intro:
In most ecosystems, the availability of nutrition is the most limiting factor of population growth and activity (Fábregas, 1997). If there is a lack of food resources in a community or a lack of certain specific dietary requirements, then the physiology of that community and it’s fecundity should be noticeably affected. Nutrients like carbohydrates, proteins and fats are carried around the body, along with oxygen from the air, through the circulatory system throughout which metabolism uses oxygen to convert these nutrients into ATP for energy use (Johnson 1980). When an organism is experiencing starvation it is not receiving enough nutrients to support the normal rate of ATP and hence energy production and so slows all metabolic processes in the body in order to preserve energy for survival (Jacobstein and Gerken, 1989). With the decreased rate of metabolism there is less demand for oxygen and so the rate of oxygen consumption and overall activity of the organism slows with the rate of metabolism (Fábregas, 1998).
The study of the effect of specific diets on the activity of Artemia has been the subject of several experiments (Sick, 1976; Johnson, 1980; Fábregas et al ., 1996, 1998). Nutrition treatment has been shown to affect the activity rates of populations of Artemia. This experiment, through feeding two populations of Artemia different levels of algae and fish food for three weeks, we investigated the effect of nutrition on the activity of Artemia. The low nutrition population was fed algae on daily basis providing largely carbohydrates whereas the high nutrition population was fed daily ten times the amount of algae as the low nutrition population plus fish food which gave them an extra source of protein and nitrogen. During the experiment the length-specific oxygen consumption rate of the different populations was recorded and a video of each population was used on the