Name: Daniel Namkoong

Biology 500
Week 27
Lab Work: Transpiration

You will complete this lab with a virtual investigation. First, read the College Board’s
transpiration lab manual information document and answer some Prelab questions.

Part 1:

Read the info document and answer the following:

1. If a plant cell has a lower water potential than its surrounding environment, make
a prediction about the movement of water across the cell membrane. In other
words, will the cell gain water or lose water? Explain your answer thoroughly,
and you may want to include a diagram with annotations.

The higher water potential outside of the cell will cause the water to move into the plant
cell to activate homeostasis which means that the cell will gain water.

2. In the winter, salt is sometimes spread over icy roads. In the spring, after the ice
has melted, grass often dies near these roads. What causes this to happen? Explain
your answer thoroughly, and you may want to include a diagram with annotations.

The salt causes the water to leave the cell to achieve homeostasis and all of the water
eventually leaves the cell.

3. Prepare a thin section of stem from your plant and examine it under the
microscope to identify the vascular tissues (xylem and phloem) and the structural
differences in their cells. If you don’t have a microscope, you may want to do a
Google image search for xylem and phloem. Describe how the observed
differences in cellular structure reflect differences in function of the two types of
vascular tissue.

Xylem is responsible for the transport of water and minerals from the roots to the rest of
the plant and phloem is responsible for the transport of sugars and other organic
compounds from the leaves to the rest of the plant. Visually, xylem appears as a series of
thick-walled, cylindrical structures, while phloem appears more like a series of elongated
cells forming continuous tubes with sieve plates that allow for lateral movement of
nutrients between adjacent cells.

4. If you wanted to transplant a tree, would you choose to move the tree in the
winter, when it doesn’t possess any leaves but it’s cold outside (let’s assume the
ground is not frozen)? Or during the summer, when the tree has leaves and the
weather is warm and sunny? Explain your answer.

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 Name: Daniel Namkoong

You should move it during the summer, because in the winter all of its nutrients are
stored in the roots. If you pull a tree from the ground in the winter it will destroy the roots
and it will die. Also, during the summer, it has the ability to gain nutrients after
replanting.

The first part of the lab procedure involves a study of stomata, which (as you should
know already) are key structures in the process of transpiration. Answer the following:

1. How can you calculate the total leaf surface area expressed in cm2? In mm2?
Measure the top and bottom of one leaf
2. How can you estimate the leaf surface area of the entire plant without measuring
every leaf?
Multiply this number by the number of leaves
3. What predictions and/or hypotheses can you make about the number of stomata
per mm2 and the rate of transpiration?
More stomata = More transpiration
4. Is the leaf surface area directly related to the rate of transpiration?
Yes, the surface area is directly related to the rate of transpiration.
5. What predictions can you make about the rate of transpiration in plants with
smaller or fewer leaves?
The rate of transpiration would be slower in plants with smaller or fewer leaves. If the
plant has a greater surface area, then the plant will have a faster rate of transpiration.
6. Because most leaves have two sides, do you think you have to double your
calculation to obtain the surface area of one leaf? Why or why not?
If there are two sides to the plant, there is going to be a greater surface area. The two
sides are the upper and the lower epidermis.

Now, study the potometer assembly and summarize in a few sentences how it is effective
in measuring transpiration rates:

A potometer is an experimental setup used to measure the rate of transpiration in plants.

It consists of a plant shoot, which is sealed to a glass tube filled with water, and a
graduated capillary tube. As water is lost from the plant through transpiration, the water
in the capillary tube is pulled up the tube due to the negative pressure generated by the
transpiration process. By measuring the change in water level in the capillary tube over
time, the rate of transpiration can be calculated. The potometer is an effective way to
measure transpiration rates because it allows for direct measurement of water loss from
the plant.

Part 2:

Please watch the video included for the “virtual investigation” data (the virtual lab used
to run with Flash but it is now unsupported so I’ve included the video for you to use in
order to record data). Below, construct a table to report your data, and answer the analysis
questions.

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 Name: Daniel Namkoong

Normal With Fan With Heater With Lamp

Arrowhead 3.6 mL 7.5 mL 6.6 mL 4.0 mL

Coleus 0.9 mL 6.0 mL 3.9 mL 3.0 mL

Devil’s Ivy 2.9 mL 4.6 mL 4.1 mL 3.0 mL

Dieffenbachia 4.1 mL 7.7 mL 6.0 mL 3.9 mL

English Ivy 1.8 mL 5.1 mL 3.2 mL 2.1 mL

Geranium 1.2 mL 4.7 mL 5.8 mL 2.4 mL

Rubber Plant 4.9 mL 8.4 mL 6.8 mL 4.3 mL

Weeping Fig 3.3 mL 6.1 mL 4.9 mL 2.5 mL

Zebra Plant 4.2 mL 7.6 mL 6.1 mL 3.2 mL

Analysis Questions:

1. Describe the process of transpiration in vascular plants.

Transpiration is just like evaporation, it is a process by which moisture is carried through

plants from roots to small pores on the underside of leaves, where it changes to vapor and
is released to the atmosphere. It is also a process in which vascular plants gain nutrients
and lose water.

2. Describe any experimental controls used in the Investigation.

The experimental controls used in this investigation is the amount of time.

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

Environmental factors that increased the rate of transpiration included temperature, heat,
wind, and light. All plant's transpiration increased.

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

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 Name: Daniel Namkoong

Wind increased the rate of transpiration the most then followed by heat and light. Wind
increased the transpiration rate the most because it is the most effective in blowing water
molecules off the plant.

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

The arrowhead had the highest transpiration rates. This is probably due to the leaves
being the largest out of all of the plants.

6. Suppose you coated the leaves of a plant with petroleum jelly. How would the
plant's rate of transpiration be affected?

The rate of transpiration would be slowed due to the jelly preventing the water from
evaporating.

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

Losing water through transpiration allows the plants to draw more water from the roots
which equals to more nutrients being drawn up.

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