Impact of water deficiency on the growth rate of wild-type and cer10 mutant Arabidopsis thaliana

Abstract

We observed the effect of water deficiency on the growth rate of wild-type and cer10 mutant Arabidopsis thaliana plants. Replicates consisted of 20 total pots, 10 containing two 14-day-old wild-type seedlings each and 10 containing two 14-day-old cer10 mutant seedlings each. Five of each pot type were treated with 125 mL of water, and the other five received 50 mL when watered. Length of the longest rosette leaf for each plant was measured on days 1, 8, 13 and 19 and a two-way ANOVA was conducted on the growth rates between days 8 and 19. Our results indicate that reduced water availability decreases the growth rate of both the wild-type and cer10 mutant A. thaliana (p=0.007). Furthermore, the effect of water availability on the growth rate appeared to be not significantly different for both the wild-type and cer10 mutants (p=0.502). In addition, there is insufficient evidence to support that wild-type A. thaliana has a greater growth rate than the cer10 mutant variety (p=0.0831).