The Effect of Temperature on the Respiration of the Earthworm

Abstract

annihilation of oppositely charged particles might then be expected to take place in certain regions of space. G. Final Remarks.-The above considerations should be regarded as preliminary programmatic suggestions concerning theoretically possible extraterrestrial effects of cosmic rays and atomic rays. In order to proceed efficiently with this program it will be necessary to collect more data on the ejection of corpuscular rays from novae. As Baade and Zwicky2 have suggested , the study of super-novae in particular promises to furnish the key to many phenomena related to interstellar rays, as well as to other fundamental problems of astrophysics. A large number of studies dealing with the effect of temperature on the respiration of poikilothermous animals have consistently shown an increase in the rate of gas exchange with a rise in temperature. This relationship has been described by the application of the Arrhenius equation (cf. Crozier" 2) which states that the velocity of essentially irreversible reactions is proportional to the exponential of-,u/RT. The equation is written V = e-/RT + C where V is the velocity of the reaction being measured, e is the base of the natural logarithms, R is the gas constant, T is the absolute temperature, C is a constant of integration and ,u is the critical thermal increment. In plotting the data and determining values for the constant ,u, the form of the equation used is log K2-logKi = 2.3R(T,-where K1 and K2 are the rates of respiration at the absolute temperatures T1 and T2. Temperature characteristics have repeatedly been found to yield values of approximately 11,000 and 16,000 calories for respiratory processes. 270