Life Sciences Commons^™

Stomatal Conductance Trends Of The Jade Plant (Crassula Ovata) In Relation To Circadian Rhythm Entrainability, Katie Cahoon, Martin Garcia, Matthew Pierga

Featured Research

The effect of an inverse light cycle on a Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) plant was observed in the study. CAM plants are unique in that they open their stomata at night in order to conserve water, an evolution that has come about because these plants primarily exist in very arid climates. By placing a plant in a chamber in which the lights could be programmed to turn on when it was dark out, and to turn off during normal daylight hours, the stomatal conductance of the leaves of a jade plant (Crassula ovata) were recorded several times a day over …

Exploring The Open-Close Mechanism Of Dimorphotheca Aurantiaca: Day Versus Night And Cold Versus Hot Temperatures, Tommy Chung, Kathleen Aguilar, Sunny Kim

Featured Research

In the spring of every year on Pepperdine University’s campus, patches of hills are covered with the South African native flower Dimorphotheca aurantiaca or more commonly known as the African Daisy. An observation of the opening and closing mechanism of the flower triggered an important question: does the flower change its shape based on temperature or the presence of light? At night, the African Daisy closes and then opens up again in the daytime. Because temperature has such strong effects on different species of ectodermic animals and temperature-sensitive plants, we hypothesized that the change in temperature initiates the flower’s morphological …

The Effects Of Light Intensity And Color Absorption Of Diurnal Leaf Movements Of Malva Parviflora, Amy Lawrence, Ben Young, Matthew Yarborough

Featured Research

Our group measured the heliotropic response rate of the Malva parviflora under various light environments in order to see the effect that light color and intensity had on daily leaf movement. In our experiment we measured the leaf angle of plants under white, blue, red and green light, as well as plants under shade, over a specific duration of time in order to determine the rate of change. We ran a One-Way Analysis of Variance on leaf angle for light color as well as coverage at a 0.05 level using SPSS 17.0. The ANOVA test showed no significance for light …

Comparison Of Uva Absorbance In Sun And Shade Leaves, James Newton, Kevin Rivera, James Kim

Featured Research

In observing chaparral species’ resistance to abiotic plant stresses, this investigation sought to study plant defense against UVA radiation in sun and shade leaves. We predicted that sun leaves would have higher absorbance of UV radiation considering their day-long exposure to sunlight.

UVA (350nm-400nm) absorbance in sun and shade leaves of Heteromeles arbutifolia and Malosma laurina were measured using an integrating sphere. Four leaves from each group were surveyed for reflectance and absorbance. Using the spectrophotometer, reflectance in the green wavelengths (500-600nm) was measured and divided by reflectance in the red (600-700nm) to give a quantitative estimation of the redness …