Coping with Drought: Insights from Leaf Temperature Patterns in Seedlings

In this project, I’m exploring how plants respond to drought stress through growth chamber experiments. During the fall quarter, I collected data from oak and pine seedlings in the lab. In the following quarter, I analyzed the dataset collected, focusing specifically on leaf temperature dynamics. The dataset contains the species information, as well as other biophysical and meteorological variables across time. Through data visualization and exploratory analysis, I found that leaf temperature closely tracked environmental temperature across time. This suggests a positive relationship between the two variables. Across all species, leaf temperature exhibited a clear peak in early October, which may indicate a response to prolonged drought stress under controlled conditions in San Joaquin. These findings suggest that leaf temperature be a useful indicator of plant responses to drought stress. Next, I plan to further examine other meteorological variables to better understand the patterns.