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Unravelling the ozone toxicity in Zea mays L. (C4 plant) under the elevated level of CO2 fertilization

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Abstract

Enhanced anthropogenic activities affect agricultural production in many ways. An integrated study assessing the combined impact of increased tropospheric ozone and carbon dioxide on agriculture is still elusive. An investigation was carried out to study the impacts of elevated levels of CO2 (eCO2) and O3 (eO3) and their interaction on a C4 plant, maize cultivar DHM117, based on growth, physiological, and yield responses using open top chambers. Plant growth parameters remained unaffected due to eCO2 exposure. However, the toxic impact of O3 was alleviated to some extent under eCO2 concentration, as revealed by the increment in total biomass under combined exposure. CO2 fertilization increased yield by 13.8%, while a reverse trend was observed under eO3 treatment. Lowering of stomatal conductance under eCO2 partially protected the plants against O3 uptake and resulting phytotoxicity. Stimulation of total phenolic and phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL) activity confirmed the activation of defence mechanism to counter the oxidative stress under high O3 dose. Likewise, a significant rise in the activities of antioxidative enzymes [peroxidase (POX) and ascorbate peroxidase (APX)] involved in defence mechanisms was observed under ECO2 + EO3, leading to a reduced accumulation of H2O2 content in the test plant. This observation was further affirmed by the redundancy analysis, which revealed the significant role of enzymatic antioxidants (explained variance = 15.5%) in compensating for the damaging effect of reactive oxygen species (ROS), translating to significant changes in yield attributes under combined exposure of CO2 and O3.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the Head of Department of Botany, and Co-ordinators, CAS in Botany, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India. ISLS (DBT), FIST (DST) is also acknowledged for providing the necessary facilities to carry out the work. This work was supported by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), New Delhi, Government of India in form of a major Research Project (38(1287)/11/EMR-II). SBA is also thankful to CSIR, New Delhi for providing emeritus scientist fellowship.

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  1. Laboratory of Air Pollution and Global Climate Change, Department of Botany, Institute of Science, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, 221005, India

    Aditya Abha Singh, Annesha Ghosh, Madhoolika Agrawal & S. B. Agrawal

  2. Department of Botany, University of Lucknow, Lucknow, 226007, India

    Aditya Abha Singh

  3. CSIR-Central Institute of Mining & Fuel Research, Barwa Road, Dhanbad, 826 015, Jharkhand, India

    Bhanu Pandey

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  1. Aditya Abha Singh
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Singh, A.A., Ghosh, A., Pandey, B. et al. Unravelling the ozone toxicity in Zea mays L. (C4 plant) under the elevated level of CO2 fertilization. Trop Ecol 64, 739–755 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42965-023-00298-6

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