Salinity Changes :: science

Salinity ChangesI chose to experiment with the effects of salinity changes on the polychaete worm, Nereis succinea. Along with the other members of the group, Patty and Jeremy, I was curious to see whether the worms would consider in adaptive behavior when placed in a armoured combat vehicle of water of foreign salinity, or whether they would simply continue changing osmoti presagey until they reached equilibrium with the environment. The first step in our experiment was to simply strike the worms and get a feel for the ways in which they act. We did this on Wednesday, may 7, 1997 from 930am to 1030am. in like manner on this day we learned how to concoction and measure salinity, practiced weighing the worms, and deciding our exact schedule as far as when we would come in and for how long, etc. From what I observed, the polychaete is a salt-water worm that has adapted to live in estuaries. We kept the sway tank at 20 split per thousand to 24 parts per thousand, and the worms seemed very content and healthy at that level. The worms on which we experimented ranged in size from approximately four inches to approximately six inches. They weighed from 1.8 grams to 4.6 grams at the beginning of the experiment. They go for a pinkish, almost salmon color to them, and on two reverse gear sides, they have these crimson hairs lined up in a row, stretchiness the entire length of their bodies (the hairs are less than an eighth of an inch long). If we were to call the two lines of hair east and west, then on the conglutination and south sides, there were dark lines that also stretched the entire length of their bodies. These were their base blood vessels, and though we tried to locate the pulse that is supposed to prominently travel up and down this vessel, we were not able to locate it, save once on one worm for less than 30 seconds. Also I often was not able to tell the difference surrounded by the head and the tail. Their actions were very basic. They seem ed to like to stay still for the most part, hide underneath the little bit of seaweed we effectuate in the tank. We also put a glass tube at the bottom of the tank, thinking that they capacity try to crawl in there for safety, but we never saw them in there.