CBL Interfacing

Breathing: Germinating Peas vs. Earthworms

Questions

1. Based on a comparison of slopes, how does the rate of respiration of the germinating peas, compare to the rate of respiration of the earthworms?
2. In your own words, explain why the following procedures were performed:
   • Setting up respirometers with no earthworms or grasshoppers in it.
   • Determining the mass of the earthworms and grasshoppers.
3. What activities of these organisms accounts for the different slopes which you observed? Try to be intuitive.
4. Both the pea plant and earthworm are respire using oxygen. If plants and animals both use oxygen, how is the oxygen in our atmosphere replenished?
5. If set up our pea respirometer the day the peas first began to germinate, and left it set up for about a week, how would the following plot appear? Sketch and justify your prediction. There are a number of reasonable responses here, depending on what factors you think of!

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