Discipline: Ecology Environmental and Earth Sciences
Subcategory: Ecology
Quaneisha Woodford - Fort Valley State University
Co-Author(s): Dan Chitwood, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, St. Louis, MO
Leaf morphology is the form of a leaf. The shape of a leaf is influenced by evolution, development, and the different environmental factors such as temperature, sunlight, and shade. Some of these factors can either delay or accelerate the development of a leaf. The leaf organ is very essential to plant growth and for human survival. Having homologous points, grape leaves can be landmark-based (a feature unique to grape leaves). These features are used when outlining leaf shape and examing the thickness of the vein. Having homologous points makes it easier to track the different developmental stages of a leaf. Grapevine (Vitis spp.) leaves from different species are very different from one another, making grapevine an appropriate model to explore the evolutionary and developmental forces shaping leaves.
Our goal is to run several tests to see if allometry, heteroblasty, environmental or evolutionary factors have a greater effect on the development of the leaf shape as well as the thickness of the vein.
We collected a data set of the Vitis spp. grapevine leaves, over the course of a two year, 2013 and 2015, span by using morphometric statistics, data programming, and performing morphometric analyses. We are measuring the thickness of the veins and testing to see how the different factors affects the development of the leaf using wild relatives of domesticated grape leaves.
Our results illustrate that there are some similarities, minor differences, between the same species over a two year time frame. One of the results show that the angle between the distal and proximal vein is influenced by environmental factors (year). The evolutionary factors does not affect the leaf shape or vein thickness.
Funder Acknowledgement(s): This study was supported by NSF HRD HBCU-UP Targeted #1238789.
Faculty Advisor: Sarwan Dhir,