Is The Silver Maple (Acer Saccharinum) Samaras?

The Silver Maple (Acer Saccharinum) samaras reside in the eastern United States and undergo seed dispersal between April and July of each year. During seed dispersal these fruits are trying to disperse their seeds as far away from their tree as possible to have the highest success to produce offspring. The seeds that disperse close to the parent plant have shown less success and higher mortality rates than seeds that disperse farther from the base of the tree. Also, fruits with larger seeds have shown that they are more likely to have higher dispersal rates than smaller fruits with smaller seeds (Nathan, Safriel, Noy-Meir 1996). The samaras face a tradeoff between where the fruit disperses the seeds in relation to the tree and how many seeds
The total number of Silver Maple (Acer Saccharinum) samaras were observed and compared to the mean difference in descent rate between the two trials. The average change descent rate between the two trials was -0.75 meters per second error bars from -0.5 to -1 (Figure 1). A paired t-test was run to determine whether the data collected to find the mean difference in descent rate was significant between both trials. The p-value of the difference in descent rate between the pre and post trials was 0.033. Also, the the frequency of number of seeds for the difference values of descent rates was found. This data showed that the most frequent difference in descent rated between the pre and post trials was in the range of 0.0 to -1.5, with the range of -0.5 to -1.0 having the highest frequency of fruits with this range of difference in descent rate between the two trials (Figure 2). Additionally, the descent rate of the Silver Maple samaras (Acer Saccharinum) was compared to the mass of each samara both pre and post manipulation. The pre manipulated showed that the greater in weight of the fruit the higher the descent rate. The r2 value for this data is 0.505 indicating that the data in this trial is 50.5 % correlated. The post manipulated samaras also show that the higher the weight of the fruit leads to a higher descent rate. Also, the manipulated
After evaluating all the results of the experiment before and after the manipulation, we conclude that the data supports our hypothesis and that mass of the samara is correlated to the descent rate.We saw in the first trial the heavier samaras had a higher descent rate. Then as we increased the weight of the original samaras, to simulate the weight of the samaras while they are living, generally the descent rates of each samara increased. These results show that heavier samaras have a higher probability of falling close to their tree and have a low rate of reproductive success. Smaller samaras have a higher probability of falling far from the tree, because they have a better chance of being caught by wind, and having a high rate of reproductive success. These results are consistent with the idea that these fruits face a tradeoff between descent rate and the weight of the seed. In order for the seeds to have the highest probability of reproductive success there needs to be a compromise between the descent rate, the weight of the seed, and the size of the wing (Nathan, Safriel, Noy-Meir 1996). All of these factors contribute to the reproductive success of the Silver Maple (Acer Saccharinum) samaras. To continue to study the correlation between mass and descent rate and learn more about the trade off the samaras