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Grant support

This paper was possible thanks to the help of F. Moreno for technical support as well as the MIRE group for fruitful discussions. We also acknowledge Universidad Autonoma de Madrid for financial support through the Programa de Innovacion Docente.

Analysis of institutional authors

González, SergioAuthorSanz Alferez, SoledadAuthorOrús, Maria IsabelAuthorAres Fernandez, Jose RamonAuthor

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May 19, 2021
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Sap Is Clever? Sap Ascent for Undergraduates Investigated with an Artificial Tree

Publicated to:PHYSICS TEACHER. 59 (5): 356-359 - 2021-05-01 59(5), DOI: 10.1119/10.0004887

Authors: González, Sergio; Sanz Alférez, Soledad; Orús, Maria Isabel; Ares Fernández, José Ramón

Affiliations

Univ Autonoma Madrid, Madrid, Spain - Author
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid - Author

Abstract

10.1119/10.0004887.1 Water is the essential component in living and its role is particularly important in plants. In fact, the crucial photosynthesis process involves a huge loss of sap by transpiration (around 99% from the total amount recovered from the soil through the plant roots) from the stomas on the leaves. Therefore, a question arises: How could trees raise the sap to heights up to 100 m? In this article we present a simple experimental setup that provides a direct visualization and quantification of the water ascent process against gravity. Moreover, the artificial tree offers analogies with realones that will help undergraduate science students from different areas to investigate the influence of environmental and morphological parameters on the variety of physics phenomena underlying the ascension mechanism.

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Transpiration rate

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal PHYSICS TEACHER due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency Scopus (SJR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2021, it was in position , thus managing to position itself as a Q2 (Segundo Cuartil), in the category Education. Notably, the journal is positioned en el Cuartil Q4 for the agency WoS (JCR) in the category Physics, Multidisciplinary.

Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2025-09-11:

  • The use, from an academic perspective evidenced by the Altmetric agency indicator referring to aggregations made by the personal bibliographic manager Mendeley, gives us a total of: 6.
  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 6 (PlumX).

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 0.5.
  • The number of mentions on the social network X (formerly Twitter): 1 (Altmetric).

It is essential to present evidence supporting full alignment with institutional principles and guidelines on Open Science and the Conservation and Dissemination of Intellectual Heritage. A clear example of this is:

Leadership analysis of institutional authors

There is a significant leadership presence as some of the institution’s authors appear as the first or last signer, detailed as follows: First Author (Gonzalez-Camara, Sergio) and Last Author (Ares, Jose-Ramon).

the author responsible for correspondence tasks has been Sanz-Alferez, Soledad.