The Effects of Temperature on Pollination Rate of False Garlic Team: Ballin Pollen Emily, Brian, and Mary Beth

What is Pollination? Pollination is a major process that plants must go through to fertilize an egg

Basic Steps of Pollination Pollen grain lands on a stigma Pollen grain sends a pollen tube down the pistil Sperm cells travel down pollen tube to fertilize egg

Our Experiment We wanted to test the growth rate of a plants pollen tube in various temperature climates We tested three varied temperature climates Room Temperature 21.5 C Warmer Temperature held under a light 23.5 Cooler Temperature 3.3 C

Our Specimen False Garlic Native to North America Common Wild Flower NOTHOSCORDUM BIVALVE

Our Hypothesis The False Garlic Flower s would have the best pollination rate in the room temperature The pollen tubes in the colder and warmer environment would not grow as well as the one in the room temperature climate

The Experiment: Methods

Set Up We set up three Petri dish humidity chambers for each temperature Humidity Chamber consisted of: Coffee Filter Bottom Straws positioned as a platform for a slide Pollen grains where placed on the concave area of the slide

Controls To prevent sunlight from effecting the experiment, each set up was covered with black paper Water amount was consistent Each petri dish was left for the same amount of time (24 hours)

Measuring the Data

After our pollen tubes grew… Using a 10x microscope, we measured three pollen tubes from each set up and took the average length of each The microscope was hooked up to a TV monitor which we then where able to use string to measure the length of the pollen tubes

The Final Data

in mil

Pollen Tube Growth Measurements

Conclusion

Complications in Experimentation Our first attempt at running this experiment failed when our first specimen (snow bells) did not grow pollen tubes The set up under the light showed very low pollination rates, which seemed very odd considering it was only a few degrees different from the room temperature

Our Conclusion We came to the conclusion that more data need be collected Though our hypothesis was mostly correct, the data collected from the warmer temperature showed an abnormality that should be researched more

Thanks to: Our Mentor, Mona Monfared Our Instructor, Dr. Allison Landry