Protecting the photosynthetic performance of snap bean under free air ozone exposure
Lu Zhang , Yasutomo Hoshika , Elisa Carrari , Kent O. Burkey , Elena Paoletti
DOI:10.1016/j.jes.2017.05.009
Received February 17, 2017,Revised January 01, 1900, Accepted May 08, 2017, Available online May 14, 2017
Volume 30,2018,Pages 31-40
Tropospheric ozone (O3) is a major air pollutant and causes serious injury to vegetation. To protect sensitive plants from O3 damage, several agrochemicals have been assessed, including cytokinin (e.g., kinetin, KIN) and ethylenediurea (EDU) with cytokinin-like activity. In higher plant, leaves are primarily injured by O3 and protective agrochemicals are often applied by leaf spraying. To our knowledge, the mitigating abilities of EDU and KIN have not been compared directly in a realistic setup. In the present research, impacts of elevated O3 (2 × ambient O3, 24 hr per day, for 8 days) on an O3 sensitive line (S156) of snap bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), which is often used for biomonitoring O3 pollution, were studied in a free air controlled exposure system. The day before starting the O3 exposure, plants were sprayed with a solution of EDU (300 ppm), KIN (1 mmol/L) or distilled water, to compare their protective abilities. The results demonstrated that 2 × ambient O3 inhibited net photosynthetic rate and stomatal conductance, increased the minimal fluorescence yield of the dark-adapted state, decreased the maximal quantum yield of PSII photochemistry, and led to visible injury. KIN and EDU alleviated the reduction of the photosynthetic performance, and visible injury under O3 fumigation. The plants sprayed with EDU showed greater ability to mitigate the O3 damage than those sprayed with KIN. Chlorophyll fluorescence imaging may have detected more precisely the differences in O3 response across the leaf than the conventional fluorometer.
