An improved equipment for continous measurement of respiration of marine invertebrates

A respirometer for small benthic marine invertebrates is presented. The advantages of this construction are: compactness and easy transport of the equipment, small respiration chamber, entrance and exit electrodes close to respiration chamber, exact temperature control and equilibration of the experimental medium, exact regulation of the flow-through speed, digital display of consumed O2 values. The equipment is suitable for long-term measurement of O2 consumption by benthos organisms in low oxygen conditions and for a rapid picture of the reaction of experimental animals to abrupt changes in their environment (e.g. temperature, salinity, composition of the medium). Procedure for experiments involving a lowering of the O2 content of the medium is explained