1.

Hypothesis: Daphnia will respond to water of increasing salinity with an

increased heartbeat. This will include at least three levels of salinity
tested.
2. This research is primarily to satisfy curiosity as to whether daphnia live
and flourish in freshwater, seawater, or hypersaline water. This could
be an important question for raising daphnia for research. It also could
have an effect as the oceans are increasing in salinity because of
evaporation of ocean water and formation of sea ice.
Because the testable hypothesis relates to salinity, the dependent
variable will be the level of salinity in the water. We would need an
observable slide that could hold water and the daphnia. Then, I would
propose three groups (at least). Freshwater, water with the salinity of
sea water (around 35 parts per thousand), and hypersaline (70 parts
per thousand) solution. For each of these, we would use the
microscope over a period of time to observe a heartbeat. This would
have to be repeatable, so each sample would have to be counted
numerous times. Then these results could be graphed and analyzed to
determine the effect of salinity.
3. I expect that the daphnias heart rate will increase with salinity as their
body processes and tries to return to homeostasis. Daphnia generally
live in freshwater, so no increase in heart rate is expected there. We
would use the daphnias heart rate as an indicator of overall condition.