User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
I would have preferred to display my data in a graph but because there was weak evidence for my hypothesis I felt it would be easier to interpret my data using a table.
I did struggle to collect the correct data for my hypothesis. After starting the literature review I was able to better understand why some western redcedar trees sunscald after they had been exposed to full sun, but others are able to thrive in full sun. Western redcedar is not shade requiring but rather shade tolerant, meaning they have adapted to both full sun and shade conditions. If I had understood the evolutionary fitness process of being able to develop two morphologically and physiologically different leaves (Shade leaves and Sun leaves) I would have set up my plots to study different replicates.
However, the slight increase in light conditions has shown some damage to the foliage on the trees that were adapted to sun exposure which will correspond to my hypothesis.
I would like to further research the ability for shade leaves to recover or adapt to sun exposure. To date, I have not been able to find any literature specifically related to western redcedar’s ability to recover from sunscalding. Or does the tree just shed the damaged shade leaves and it’s new growth develop as sun leaves?
