Plant life in the winter

Plant winter adaptations

Task

Use your ipad to create a time-lapse video of 5 freezing liquids: Water, deionized water, alcohol (10 tea spoons)/water mix, sugar water (3 table spoons of sugar), sugar water (10 table spoons of sugar). Make sure you label the cups so one can identify the type of solution in the time-lapse video.

Plant winter adaptations

Broadleaves

Nutrient mobilization and resorption

Litterfall

Resorption

Broadleaves – Loss of plant pigments

Sources: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ethanbeute/2955806169

http://www.vcbio.science.ru.nl/en/image-gallery/show/print/IL034/

Broadleaves – Leaf abscission

Conifers

Conifers

Sources: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ethanbeute/2955806169 and...

Jan

Year Dec

Conifer growing period (except larch)

Broadleaves growing period

Ability to conduct photosynthesis comes with some cost …

Water stress

Acclimation to subfreezing temperatures

Frost tolerance

Watch time lapse videos

Freeze point depression

Increasing intercellular solute concentration

Acclimation

Acclimation

1

2

Task (15 minutes/4 groups)

Use an ABBA song and re-write the lyrics so that they provide information about the role of abscisic acid in acclimating plants for winter

Source: http://bastetglasba.blogspot.com/2010/07/abbabjorn-bennyagnetha-faltskogfrida.html

Frost damage

Task (each, 5 minutes)

What weather condition might lead to frost damage and what might be the underlying processes at the cellular level?

Frost damage (cont.)

Other winter stressors?

Source: http://www.positive-thinking-for-you.com/stress-management-tips.html

o Mechanical stress o Animals o Pathogens o Humans

Mechanical Stress

“... In the spruce uplands of Finland, where winter precipitation is influenced by the Baltic Sea, a tree 12 m in height can accumulate a mass of snow and ice nearly 50 cm thick and and weighing 3000 kg…” (Merchand, 1996)

Task (7 minutes/4 groups)

What are 3000 kg comparable to? e.g. given that Jan weighs 70 kg, 3000 kg is comparable to 43 Jan’s hanging on a 12 meter tall tree Use Google etc. to come up with other examples that could help kids remember how much snow weight trees might have to carry in the winter.

Source: http://www.indiamart.com/krystal/job-work.html

Abrasion by snow

Animals

Source: http://www.wald.sg.ch/home/0/waldregion_2_werdenberg-rheintal/projekte/wald_wild/wald-wild_projekt.html:

Source: http://bfw.ac.at/rz/bfwcms.web?dok=5481

Pathogens

Humans

Source: Clatterbuck

Task (10 min/groups of two)

Why can the application of road salt damage plants?

Sou

rce: Clatterb

uck

Sodium chloride (NaCl)

Effect of road salt on plant growth

Ca++

Ca++

H+

Mg++

Al+++

K+

+ 11 Na+

Na+

Na+

Na+

Na+ Na+

Na+

+ Al+++ + Mg++ + Ca++ + K++H+

Na+

Na+

Na+

Na+

Na+

Displaces nutrients essential for plant growth

Humans (cont.)

http://www.appi.co.jp/foreign_country/english/winter/about/image/quality_main.jpg

Snow grooming

Disturbance by avalanches and its effects on Plant life

Source: John Cys, Midwestern State University

Source: http://travelblog.dailymail.co.uk/2010/03/ski-season-rumbles-on-to-a-dramatic-conclusion.html

Task (10 minutes/4 groups)

Take a total of 60 conifer needles Remove the cuticle layer of 30 conifer needles by scaring the needle surface with your finger nails. Separate the “treatment” needles from from the “control” needles. Take the total weight of the treatment and control needles Put the needles in a oven for 30 minutes at ~100°F Re-weigh the control and treatment needles

Let’s bake some needles …

Austauscher

Fig. 1. (A) Sapwood-area resistivity versus average conduit diameter for conifer tracheids with torus-margo (+TM) pit membranes and for angiosperm vessels with homogenous pit

membranes.

J Pittermann et al. Science 2005;310:1924-1924

Published by AAAS

Source: http://www.bioone.org/action/showFullPopup?doi=10.1666%2F08071.1&id=i0094-8373-36-2-335-f01

Source: www.scielo.cl/fbpe/img/maderas/v7n2/Fig2_ar06.jpg