yo people ive finally chosen what i want to do for my honours project!

 

anoxia tolerance in insects!

 

basically gonna get a few types of insects (undecided what species), and stick them in a air tight bag....oxygen will be depleted and increased levels of CO2 will occur........

 

ive got a few journals on previous studies and its very intresting....i shal be ordering the insects in (to my uni lab) for the experiment to commence! anybody have any idea of what type of insects i shuld use? i was thinking beetles and maybe larvae from beetles.

 

what do u think i shuld test for etc? i am going to let the insects have oxygen after a set period of time and record mortalitys etc..

 

any advice or discussion is appreciated!

sounds a bit sick if you ask me. why not get a tray and electrofy a patch. put food in the other side then put a rat in the other. then see how long it takes for the rat to get past the electrofication compared to how hungry it gets

lol nah ive already started this...thanks neway ross

well I try to be of help

I`m no Biologist, but aren`t Fruit flies (drosophila) usualy the beastie of choice?

sorry yes i forgot about them...yes fruit flys will also be used! with banana extract

it might be an idea to use a tall glass vessel for storage, something of a known volume as opposed to a plastic bag, that way you can make your calculations more accurate. I don`t know how you`de measure the gas volume of a plastic bag tied at random without hurting the insects (water displacement method).

It is my understanding drosophila are used because there genetics can easily be "messed with". For instance, kill off a majority of the insects with anoxia, then breed the remaining flys. I believe these flies reproduce quite quickly. Eventually you may be able to breed a set of drosophila that are extremely resistant to anoxia.

 

I'm not sure the depth or time length of these projects, but you could then screen the "anoxia resistant" strain of drosophila to determine what genes are upregulated to determine why they become anoxia resistant.