Presentation Type
Presentation
Faculty Mentor’s Full Name
Cara Nelson
Faculty Mentor’s Department
Ecosystem Science and Restoration
Abstract / Artist's Statement
With changing climate, drought is becoming a problem for many species across the globe. Scientists are predicting widespread water stress in some regions where precipitation has previously been plentiful and understanding the effects of water stress on vegetation has become a primary research need. Since most studies do not report the efficacy of experimental drought treatments, however, the scientific community lacks information on the most effective ways to create experimental drought -- a real limitation to understanding drought effects on plants. To improve knowledge about drought treatments, I conducted an experiment to assess the effect of drought treatments and pot sizes on volumetric water content (VWC, the ratio of water volume to soil volume). In order to determine how VWC in soil changes over time under different temperatures regimes (20° C = control; and 26° C = drought treatment) and with different sized pots (2” deep, 2” shallow, and 4” shallow), I set up an experiment in two growth chambers at the University’s Environmental Controlled Organismal Research (ECOR) Facility. After filling the pots with soil, I watered to field capacity and left the pots in the chambers to dry-down for 4 days, continuously recording VWC during this time. I replicated the experiment 9 times. I found that all pots in the drought experiment dried down at a faster rate then those in the control, and the results clearly show pot size matters when attempting to maintain a particular VWC in drought studies.
Category
Physical Sciences
Presentation slides
TESTING THE EFFICACY OF DROUGHT TREATMENTS: FOR PLANT ECOLOGY RESEARCH
With changing climate, drought is becoming a problem for many species across the globe. Scientists are predicting widespread water stress in some regions where precipitation has previously been plentiful and understanding the effects of water stress on vegetation has become a primary research need. Since most studies do not report the efficacy of experimental drought treatments, however, the scientific community lacks information on the most effective ways to create experimental drought -- a real limitation to understanding drought effects on plants. To improve knowledge about drought treatments, I conducted an experiment to assess the effect of drought treatments and pot sizes on volumetric water content (VWC, the ratio of water volume to soil volume). In order to determine how VWC in soil changes over time under different temperatures regimes (20° C = control; and 26° C = drought treatment) and with different sized pots (2” deep, 2” shallow, and 4” shallow), I set up an experiment in two growth chambers at the University’s Environmental Controlled Organismal Research (ECOR) Facility. After filling the pots with soil, I watered to field capacity and left the pots in the chambers to dry-down for 4 days, continuously recording VWC during this time. I replicated the experiment 9 times. I found that all pots in the drought experiment dried down at a faster rate then those in the control, and the results clearly show pot size matters when attempting to maintain a particular VWC in drought studies.