Natural behavior of daphnia

[fishoverlivingspace]

Hi. I've got a question concerning daphnia and their behavior in nature. For one thing, I'd like to start culturing them for freshwater pipefish food, and for another, I'm designing a lab experiment in which I'll be testing heart rates and changes in anti-predatory inhibitions when Daphnia magna are exposed to behavior altering drugs, such as caffeine and alcohol. I'd like to know about their tendencies to stay near shelter in light, diets, natural water parameters, etc., but primarily behavioral tendencies. If anyone has specific information, or could direct me to some reputable sources or scholarly articles from which I could take reference, it would be much appreciated. Thank you very much in advance.

 

[kydsexy]

not sure what grade you are in but you're on the right track towards a beautiful college thesis. i did mine on a similar topic for my thesis. a very reputable source would be Professor James Haney @ the University of New Hampshire. You can google him for a few articles. you can also check unh's website for his email address. he'd love to speak about daphnia to you! i took a few of his limnology courses and 50% of the material revolved around Daphnia. He also designed a machine to monitor heart rates, basically just an ultra sensitive waterproof microphone. that'd be a great starting point

hope this helps

 

[fishoverlivingspace]

Haha, this is actually a project for the zoology lab at UW-Madison.

 

[nomicon]

I like donuts.

 

[fishoverlivingspace]

Pretty irrelevant to the conversation at hand, but thanks for the input.

Kyd, that name brought me quite a few useful search results. Thank you kyd, and thank you james haney!

 

[kydsexy]

not a problem. always glad to help a future fellow zoologist!!!

in all seriousness, feel free to email him. he loves to answer questions especially from college students of other schools! best of luck with your project

 

[fishoverlivingspace]

Well, if you care to know, I did 3 15-minute experiments on monday involving the effects of caffeine, ethanol, and NaCl on Daphnia magna's tendencies to linger near shelter while in bright light at room temperature. Ethanol made them seemingly careless, going wherever, whereas caffeine actually seemingly made them more cautious, and NaCl slowed their movement through water, thus causing them to stay closer to shelter. Thanks again for the pointers.