Stomata Lab Report

All plants have stoma to help regulate how much water is taken and released along with the other chemicals involved. Stomatal density is the number of stomata per unit area of a leaf. The experiment conducted with leaves along a water source and away from a water source was to analyze the stomatal density difference. This experiment was performed to measure which environment had a greater effect on stomatal density. Stomata of a leaf is a miniature pore in the epidermis of a leaf surrounded by guard cells that have a slit which allow movement of gases in and out of the leaf. With stomata, when it opens carbon dioxide enters a leaf while water and dioxide exit the leaf. (Reece, Taylor, Simon, Dickey, Hogan, 2015) A plant conserves water when
(Mencuccini, 2004, pg. 1) Stomata can be used to serve as ports during infection entry while it also closes as part of a plant immune response. (Melotto, Underwood, Koczan, Nomura, Yang He, 2006) According to Francis Darwin, F.R.S. (1898), stomatal density can be affected by water vapor depending on whether the stomata are open. In our experiment, we were looking for the effect of environmental area on the leaves stomatal density. Our experiment measured the stomatal density difference between a wet experiment and a dry experiment. The factor that will affect our stomatal density will be the closer leaves are to a water source the less the stomatal density will be due to less continuation of the opening and closing of stomata to take in carbon dioxide and release dihydrogen oxide and dioxide. All else being equal, we hypothesize that within a species, a plant leaf should develop so that its stomatal density is greater in the wet environment and less in the dry environment because the plants by the creek have a constant source of water so it does not have to regulate the stoma as much as the leaves in the dry