The effect of temperature and the cer10 mutation on the growth rate of Arabidopsis thaliana.

Abstract

Arabidopsis thaliana is a plant species common to North America, Europe and Asia. The cer10 mutant lacks wax structures responsible for water retention and stress tolerance. Our experiment looked to determine if temperature had differential effects on the growth of wild-type A. thaliana, and the cer10 mutant. We conducted a separate treatment experiment; placing four replicates of each group (each containing three pseudoreplicates) into three separate incubators (17°C, 20°C and 25°C). We tracked growth over 15 days by measuring the change in each pseudoreplicate’s primary vein length. A two-way ANOVA test was conducted upon three respective sets of hypotheses. The first test supported our alternative hypothesis that temperature has an effect on the growth of A. thaliana (p-value of 1.86x10^-4). The second test supported our alternative hypothesis that the cer10 mutation has an effect on the growth of A. thaliana (p-value of 2.27x10^-3). However, we failed to reject the third null hypothesis that temperature does not have a differential effect on growth between the two species classes (p-value of 0.28). In conclusion, our experiment indicates that the effects of temperature are no different between wild-type and mutant A. thaliana, but nonetheless, both the cer10 mutation and temperature independently have an effect on the growth of A. thaliana.