Effect of Varying Glucose Concentration Levels on Speed and Direction of Tetrahymena thermophila

Abstract

Freshwater protozoan, Tetrahymena thermophila, show ability to move towards their primary source of food, such as bacteria in water. Glucose present in the cytoplasm is thus considered to be a chemo attractant for T. thermophila. The purpose of our study was to expose starved T. thermophila to glucose concentration levels of 4.4·10^−3 M, 2.2·10^−3 M,
2.2·10^-5 M, 2.2·10^-8 M, 2.2·10^−11 M, 2.2·10^−14 M, and measure their speed and direction. We expected to see the greatest speed towards glucose at 2.2·10^−8 M concentration level based on previous findings, and hypothesized that the speed and direction of T. thermophila would be dependent on the varying glucose concentration levels. However, using a one-way ANOVA test, we found our p-value to be 0.2483 and failed to reject our null hypothesis at 5% significance level. Therefore, we concluded that the mean speed and direction of T. thermophila are independent of the six varying glucose concentration levels.