Engelmann Spruce Drought Stress and Defense Responses

Experimental data from Colorado State University researcher Thomas Seth Davis investigates drought's effect on tree defense mechanisms. The 17.5 KB Excel file contains results from applying acute and chronic water stress to Engelmann spruce trees, measuring water potentials, salicylic acid, and monoterpene concentrations. Findings show water stress below -2.0 MPa reduces photosynthetic function and alters volatile organic compound profiles.

Use Cases

• Modeling relationships between water potential and salicylic acid accumulation based on needle and stem phloem measurements
• Analyzing drought-induced changes in monoterpene composition based on concentrations of β-phellandrene, δ-3-carene, γ-terpinene, and terpinolene
• Investigating the suppression of inducible defenses based on traumatic resin duct formation data following methyl jasmonate application

Strengths

• Data originates from a controlled experiment explicitly testing water stress treatments.
• Measures multiple physiological responses including water potential, salicylic acid, and specific monoterpenes.
• Published under a permissive CC-BY-4.0 license for reuse.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The dataset is very small (17.5 KB), indicating limited scope.

Provenance

Source

Thomas Seth Davis, likely affiliated with Colorado State University based on the research context.

Collection Method

Experimental application of water stress to Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmannii) trees.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-14 17:53:29; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Likely western North America, given the tree species' range.