Growth Response of Arabidopsis thaliana to Varied Water Stress

Abstract

In the natural environment, plants are subjected to many different levels of water stress, and they adapt and respond to these stresses in different ways. In this paper, we sought to explain the growth responses of Arabidopsis thaliana (A. thaliana) to different soil water levels. Average leaf length of plants at three different water levels (dry, control and wet) was measured over a period of 20 days. Height of the primary inflorescence was also measured at day 20. Five replicates, each consisting of one pot containing three plants were used in each treatment. The growth of height showed a significant difference between control and dry treatments. However, the results showed no significant difference when comparing overall mean growth and mean outer leaf growth between treatments. Although there were trends observed indicating differences in growth between treatments, we could not reject our null hypothesis that soil water levels higher or lower than standard cause an increase or no change in growth of A. thaliana. These results could have differed from those expected because of adaptive physiological responses of A. thaliana to non-optimal water levels, or experimental error in measurement. As a result, our data suggested that there were no significant differences found, and thus the null hypothesis could not be rejected.