fairfolio
Saved Projects

The Effect of the Rhopalia on the Regeneration and Overall Health of Aurelia aurita: Year 2

CSEF · 2011 Zoology Honorable_mention Award

Manu Vaish · Palos Verdes Peninsula High School, Rolling Hills Estate, Los Angeles County

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective of my project was to determine whether the removal of the rhopalia, the sensory organ of the Aurelia Aurita, affects or even controls the organism#s regeneration and overall health. The hypothesis of the project was that when a certain rhopalia was removed the jelly would cease to function properly. Methods/Materials In order to do this project, two adult medusas and six ephyra (baby jellyfish) were obtained. Then using a pair of fine knives and a microscope an incision was made to remove two adjacent rhopalia. Once the jelly or ehphyra regenerated one or two of its original rhopalia, the next two were cut out. This process was repeated until the jelly exhibited awkward movement, no regeneration, and/or death. Results The results garnered from this experiment were that in all of the medusa jellies removal of the rhopalia resulted in either death or horrible regeneration. In all cases at least one of the rhopalia did not come back and the bell reformed all the way past the original point of cut. Also the medusa all exhibited a hoola hoop type of movement instead of a normal bell type of movement. The ehphyra all died within the first cuts mostly; however, one ehphyra managed to survive and regenerate all of its rhopalia. Also, two times out of six the ehphyra lost the arms that the rhopalia were removed from. Conclusions/Discussion The conclusions drawn from this project are that removing a rhopalia definitely affects the organism. From the medusas it shows that the rhopalia may control the movement and regeneration of the jelly and in the ephyra the results show that the rhopalia may even control its growth and development. Whether there is one rhopalia or multiple rhopalia controlling the rhopalia is still up for question; however, in the end the rhopalia truly has a massive impact on the organism from ehphyra to medusa stages.

Summary statement

The project was done to determine whether the rhopalia, the sensory organ of the Aurelia Aurita, controls the jellyfish's regeneration and overall health.

Help received

Dr. Kiersten Darrow, supplied the jellyfish and equipment.

Awards (1)

  • Honorable Mention

Competition history

  • CSEF 2011 Zoology · Entry S2213

Resources

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

Source: California Science & Engineering Fair public projects

Save projects to your library

Sign in with Google to keep track of projects you find interesting, organized into folders. An account also raises your daily allowance for “Has this been done?”, and lets you create a key for the MCP server with a much higher limit than anonymous use. Browsing stays public.

Continue with Google