Figure 1: Ratio of chlorophyll a and b (depicted by gray bar) between shamrock and peace lily. “A” represents chlorophyll a concentrations on the right axis, while “B” represents chl b on the right axis. Figure 2: Rubisco intensity measured using an SDS-PAGE gel electrophoresis. Adjusted volume was divided by 0.5g of fresh leaf weight. Figure 4: Stomatal densities of arum and shamrock. Figure 3: Guard cells. Left is arum and right is shamrock. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of shade loving (Arum) -vs- light loving plants (Shamrock) Shamrock Arum Introduction There are two types of plants in the world, plants that require a high quantity of sunlight and plants that do not require a high quantity of sunlight. There are many aspects of the plant’s physiology that allows for these light variations. For this study stomata density, rubisco, and chlorophyll were compared between peace lily (also known as the Arum) and Shamrock. Peace lily is a plant that lives in shady areas and does not receive a lot of sunlight. Shamrock is the opposite and lives in areas that receive a lot of sunlight. Plants that live in shady areas tend to spend more energy producing chlorophyll b because this helps them to use the little light that actually hits them. Plants that live in high light areas have a higher chlorophyll a/b ratio sometimes as high as 3:1, where as plants in shaded areas usually have equal a/b ratios. Rubisco is an enzyme and is used by plants during photosynthesis, and is the first step in carbon fixation (ISCID). Rubisco is the most abundant protein in leaves. Rubisco is usually found in higher content in light plants. Stomata density is the average number of cells between guard cells. Plants that live in high light areas will have fewer cells between guard cells, thus allowing less water to leave during the heat of the day. Plants that live in shady areas will have more cells between guard cells because they do not loose water as fast as high light plants. It is thought that the best house plants are those that originally adapted to growing in low light conditions because their photosynthetic machinery is geared to allow growth and existence under such low regimes. If low light ornamental house plants are adapted to growing in low light, then house plants have higher levels of photosystems and lesser amounts of Rubisco then light-loving house plants. Discussion Low light ornamental plants have the ability to live in houses due to higher concentrations of chlorophyll a and b and lesser amounts of rubisco than plants that get a lot of sunlight. It was found that peace lilly has more stomata per cm2 than shamrock, which shows that peace lilly is adapted to live in low light areas. Similar studies have been done and have shown that increased stomatal densities enabled low-light-adapted plants to have higher CO2 assimilation rates (Schlüter 2003). Shamrock also has lower amounts of Rubisco than peace lilly, which is in line with our hypothesis. The levels of Rubisco and stomatal density weren’t as far away as we hypothesized. Shamrock and peace lily both had high levels of stomata per cm2. Molly Dowling, Rory Oxton, Eric Hanson & Dr. Chastain Biosciences Dept., Minnesota State University: Moorhead