Plants are exposed to various stressful factors which vary throughout the growing season. The stressful factors the plants are exposed to affect their anatomical and biochemical properties and therefore their optical properties. In this thesis, we studied the effect of season on the optical properties of Vinca major's leaves.
Our research contained study of literature on the subject of light conditions in the environment and specifically in the undergrowth. We focused on the optical properties and plant response on the environmental changes and their anatomical, morphological as well as biochemical adaptations. We also paid special attention to the description of the area where the studied plants were picked.
We measured the reflectance and transmittance of the Vinca major’s leaves in November, April and August and graphically presented their relative reflectance and transmittance in the range of 280 to 887 nm. We compared the measurements and evaluated them. The DCA analysis helped us define the similarities between the spectra based on the average values of the spectral bands.
The DCA analysis showed that the leaves picked in November and April have similar spectral reflectance and transmittance, whereas the results acquired from the August leaves stand out. The statistical analysis of the acquired spectral bands has shown a maximum relative difference in reflectance in the case of Vinca major’s leaves picked in November, which was seen in the green and yellow spectra.
Leaves reflected a large part of the radiation in the NIR range. The examples of the April leaves had the biggest reflection.
Bigger relative transmittance was measured in the similar ranges of the spectra than it was the case in the relative reflectance. The November leaves had bigger transmittance in the green and yellow range, while the transmittance of the April and August leaves were very small. All of the studied leaves had big transmittance in the NIR range. The leaves gathered in November and April transmitted a lot of light in NIR range, whereas the leaves collected in August transmitted very few. This was due to the thickness of leaves.
Based on the results gathered and differences between spectra we can determine that season typically affects the light reflectance and transmittance of the leaves. However, a more detailed analysis would give us a better understanding of connection between the anatomical and biochemical properties and Vinca major’s optical properties.
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