• Question: How long can people, animals, and plants survive using anaerobic respiration?

    Asked by lisaloo to Claire, Kate, Matt, Rob, Sam on 24 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Sam Geen

      Sam Geen answered on 24 Jun 2013:

      We can survive for about three minutes without breathing, but I suspect doing exercise would take that down a bit. I don’t really know exactly how long, though! Normally it’s the muscles that use anaerobic respiration – the brain still needs oxygen, and gets in trouble when it runs out (I think – check with your biology teacher!).

    • Photo: Matthew Pankhurst

      Matthew Pankhurst answered on 27 Jun 2013:

      People couldn’t last very long at all – most animals not much more and only a few plants and animals could survive if the worlds oxygen were to suddenly drop. A number of living things only respire anaerobically – it’s just what they are adapted to. At the beginning of life on earth (about 3.5 Billion years ago ish) there was hardly any oxygen in the atmosphere at all, and life respired in a whole bunch of different ways.
      Check out
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_respiration
      for all the different ways to breathe easy!

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