An Exploration of the Relationship Between Leaf Surface Area and Transpiration Rate

Carley-Martin MacFarlane, Mary Vorder Bruegge, Ananya Tandri, Austin Hidden, Samuel Rivers,
Jaear McClendon, Aishwar Kalaikumar, Dustin Billingsley

NCSSM Online
Introduction

Methods Continued

In this experiment, we determined how the surface area of

bean plant leaves affect the rate of transpiration.
Transpiration, as defined by the USGS, is the 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 to the atmosphere . We predicted that the greater the
total surface area of the leaves is, the higher the
transpiration rate will be. Using 16 plants, we measured the
leaf surface area by tracing it on graph paper and then
created a 2 groups; one with large leaves, and one with
small leaves. After 3 days, the water level was measured and
compared to the control group and the transpiration rate was
determined.

All plants were placed indoors at a

window sill. Maintaining a controlled
environment eliminated most
confounding variables that may have
affected the plants.
Water levels were measured once
every 24 hours for three days. At the end
of the third day, evaporation amount was
subtracted from total water loss to calculate
transpiration amount.
The final data was placed in a table and
compared to our hypothesis to determine if
it was supported or proven wrong.

Objectives

Results

Our objective was to find the relationship between

the total surface area of the leaves on the bean plants
and the rate of transpiration.

In both experimenters plants, the larger leaved

plants transpiration rate was slightly higher than that
of the smaller leaves. The mean small leaf
transpiration rate was .158 ml/hour with a standard
deviation of .131. The mean large leaf transpiration
rate was .160 ml/hr with a standard deviation of .157.
*note: one of Sams plants had a negative transpiration rate when compared to
the control because of a measurement error.

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Conclusion
By a narrow margin, leaves with a larger surface area
were determined to transpire at a faster rate.
However, the data was ultimately statistically
insignificant, meaning it cannot be stated that
there was a significant difference between
large and small leaves transpiration rate. This
would mean that in a future with climate
change where plants may be inclined to
reduce transpiration rates due to a decline in
available water, there would be no preference
towards plants with larger or smaller leaves they would both survive almost equally.
However, the lack of a significant difference
can likely be attributed to sources of error. For
example, the lack of precise tools of
measurement would have majorly impacted
data. In addition, there were factors, such as
vessel the plant was placed in, that could not
be controlled fully - this would also impact
measurement.
To improve this experiment more precise
instruments such as a 10 milliliter or other
appropriately sized graduated cylinder should
have been used to measure out the change in
water from transpiration. Also, factors such
as how many hours of sunlight each plant
received, air temperature, and humidity could
be have been more controlled in between each
group of plants.

Methods
We divided the bean plants into two
experimental groups of eight sprouts. In
group 1, all leaves were removed except
for one leaf determined to be relatively
smaller in surface area. This was repeated
for group 2, but relatively large leaves
remained.

References

Transpiration - The Water Cycle. (n.d.). Retrieved November 08, 2016, from
http://water.usgs.gov/edu/watercycletranspiration.html

Credits
Next, we filled fourteen vessels
with equal amounts of water. Twelve
contained bean sprouts. Two vessels
remained empty. These control vessels
allowed us to measure the average
amount of evaporation so we could
calculate the approximate transpiration
amount.

Large Leaf

Small Leaf

Mary Vorder Bruegge- Wrote the Introduction and other revisions

Carley-Martin MacFarlane- Wrote the Methods section, pictures, and other revisions
Ananya Tandri- Conclusion, Results, and conducted the experiment on 4 of her own plants
Samuel Rivers- References, Charts, improvements listed in the Conclusion, also conducted the
experiment on 7 of his own plants
Austin Hidden- wrote and revised the combined procedure and worked on the credits section