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Plant Transpiration: Objectives: Describe The Process of Transpiration in Vascular Plants

1) The process of transpiration in plants involves water being absorbed through the roots and carried upwards through the stem to the leaves. Some water is used for photosynthesis but much is lost to the environment through evaporation from the stomata. 2) The experiment tested how different environmental factors like heat, light, and wind affected the transpiration rate of various plant species. Wind consistently increased transpiration rates the most across species, followed by heat. 3) Coating leaves with petroleum jelly would greatly slow a plant's transpiration rate by preventing water evaporation from the leaves.

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Sheen Angcla Mira
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56 views

Plant Transpiration: Objectives: Describe The Process of Transpiration in Vascular Plants

1) The process of transpiration in plants involves water being absorbed through the roots and carried upwards through the stem to the leaves. Some water is used for photosynthesis but much is lost to the environment through evaporation from the stomata. 2) The experiment tested how different environmental factors like heat, light, and wind affected the transpiration rate of various plant species. Wind consistently increased transpiration rates the most across species, followed by heat. 3) Coating leaves with petroleum jelly would greatly slow a plant's transpiration rate by preventing water evaporation from the leaves.

Uploaded by

Sheen Angcla Mira
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Plant Transpiration

Objectives: Describe the process of transpiration in vascular plants.


Investigate the affect of various environmental factors on the transpiration rate in plants.

Background information: What factors affect the transpiration rate in plants?

In vascular plants, water is absorbed through the roots and carried upward through the stem to the leaves. The
force behind this upward movement is called capillary action, a force of attraction between molecules that
causes liquids to move up narrow tubes, such as those inside a plant's stem.

Some of the water absorbed by a plant's roots is used for photosynthesis, but much is lost to the environment
through a process called transpiration. During photosynthesis, tiny pores on the surface of the leaves, called
stomata, open to permit the intake of carbon dioxide and the release of oxygen. Because the stomata must
remain open for the exchange of gases, large amounts of water are lost to the environment through
evaporation.

Water that evaporates from the leaves is continually replaced with water that is absorbed through the roots.
Therefore a plant's rate of transpiration can be measured by observing the amount of water taken up through a
plant's roots over a period of time. The transpiration rate can be approximated by measuring the amount of
water taken up in a short time through the plant's stem.

In a laboratory, a plant's transpiration rate can be measured using a potometer. A potometer can be assembled
from standard laboratory materials including: a ring stand, clamps, a 10mL pipette, a 100mL burette, a T-tube,
glass tubing, and rubber tubing.

To measure transpiration rate, a plant sprig is mounted on the potometer and the burette and pipette are filled
with water. Over time the plant will transpire and absorb water through its stem. The potometer is constructed
in such a way that the plant's water source is the pipette, therefore the amount of water transpired over time
can be determined by reading the water level in the pipette after time has passed. The water supply in the
pipette can be replenished from the water supply in the burette by releasing the pinch clamp.

Experiment:
Read the directions on the left side of the lab to run the experiment. (SKIPPED THIS PART PROCEED WITH THE
JOURNAL/QUESTIONS)

Observations:
Plant Normal With Fan With Heater With Light
Arrowhead 3.6 7.5 6.6 4.0
Coleus 0.9 6.0 3.9 3.0
Dieffenbachia 4.1 7.7 6.0 3.9
English Ivy 1.8 5.1 3.2 2.1
Rubber Plant 4.9 8.4 6.8 4.3
Weeping Fig 3.3 6.1 4.9 2.5
Zebra plant 4.2 7.6 6.1 3.2+

Independent Variables:

Dependent variable:
Journal:
1. Describe the process of transpiration in vascular plants.
- Transpiration occurs as a part of photosynthesis. when the plant stomata open allow the
exchange of gasses, water brought up from the xylem in the plants stem evaporates, it pulls
other molecules up through the vascular tissue of the plant due to cohesion and adhesion

2. Describe any experimental constants used in the investigation.

several controls used in this investigation are that the same amount of the time was used for each
period of transpiration, each plant was tested with all four variables (normal, heat, light, wind) and
that the same transpiration equipment we used throughout the experiment.

3. What environmental factors that you tested increased the rate of transpiration?
Was the rate of transpiration increased for all plants tested?

- The heater and the fan consistently increased by the rate of transpiration for all the plants.
The light increased the rate of transpiration 5/9 of the plants

4. Did any of the environmental factors (heat, light, or wind) increase the transpiration rate
more than the others?

- Wind increased the rate of transpiration more than all other environmental factors testedfor
8/9 of the plants. Heat has the second highest rate of transpiration for all but one of the plants
tested. Light had the lowest rate of transpiration over all. In fact, for 4/9 of the plants tested,
their transpiration rate was lower with the light than without. Wind most likely increased the
rate of transpiration the most because the wind was a blue to most effectively cause
molecules of water to evaporate or blow off of the plant causing transpiration

5. Which species of plant that you tested had the highest transpiration rates?
Why do you think different species of plants transpire at different rates?

- The arrowhead plant overall had the highest transpiration rates. This might be because it’s
leaves might be larger, which means it has more stomata or even larger stomata, which
provide more ways for the water to evaporate

6. Suppose you coated the leaves of a plant with petroleum jelly. How would the plant’s
rate of transpiration be affected?
- The petroleum jelly would prevent the water from evaporating out of the leaves of the
plant, thus the rate of transpiration would be greatly slowed

7. Of what value to a plant is the ability to lose water through transpiration?


- Losing water through transpiration allows plants to pull more water up from the soil through
their root systems, and it allows the plant to gather more minerals from the soil as well since
those minerals are contained in the water.

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