Document Type
Research Poster
Publication Date
Fall 2012
Abstract
The Santa Monica Mountains ecosystem has a high diversity of plants with different lifestyles that produce different physiological characteristics individual to all plants. Studies in Australia, another Mediterranean ecosystem, have shown that mechanical strength of leaves is relatable to soil stress. This experiment seeks to determine whether mechanical strengths of leaves correlate to stomatal conductance of leaves across different species in the Santa Monica Mountains. Four species of plants are tested for their stomatal conductance in the field, and the leaves are tested for tensile strength using Young’s Modulus for comparison across leaves. These data show that there was no comparable linear relationship across species, but also found that there were statistical differences in tensile strength and stomatal conductance for all species.
Recommended Citation
Mott, Russell P.; Fleming, Steven R.; and Macbeth, John R., "The Relationship of Stomatal Conductnace to Mechanical Strength in Leaves of Santa Monica Plants" (2012). Pepperdine University, Featured Research. Paper 47.
https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/sturesearch/47