VARITATION OF STOMATAL CHARACTERISTICS IN BROAD LEAVED SPECIES BASED ON HABITAT

Abstract

This research aims to fmd the habitat-dependent variation of micromorphological characteristics in the leaves of Fraxinus excelsior (European ash), Platanus orientalis (Plane tree) and Tilia tomentosa (Silver lime) collected from 6 different cities of different climates. The leaves were collected in Turkey in the cities of Rize, Samsun, Izmir, Antalya, Sivas, and Ankara. Samsun and Rize fall under the Black Sea climate region, Ankara and Sivas under the continental climate, whereas Antalya and Izmir enjoy a Mediterranean climate. Using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to highlight the visible morphological characteristics of the plant, we hoped to uncover how stress affects the micro-morphological properties of the plant but does not affect its vital functions. Leaf epidermis images were obtained with SEM and stoma width (mu m), length (mu m), pore width (mu m), pore length (mu m), and density (in an area of 1 mm(2)) measurements were obtained using Image J (https://imagej.net) software. A Duncan test and variance analysis were performed via SPSS (R) (IBM Analytics) and the habitat-dependent change of these characteristics was evaluated statistically. Accordingly, we determined that the stomatal characteristics varied depending on the habitat, but trees were affected differently by climate conditions. The micromorphological characteristics on the leaves depending on growth conditions were also investigated.