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The study of air pollution effects on vegetation has made rapid progress in the last five years. Growing concerns about effects of future increases in temperature and carbon dioxide (C0 ) levels on plant life have altered 2 the perspective of plant biologists in the field of pollutant-plant inter actions. In many cases, it is anticipated that crops and trees will increasingly experience multiple stresses in an altered environment: an environment in which physiological processes will no longer be matched to climate. Because of this problem, a major part of the focus of the air pollution effects research has shifted since 1987. Moreover, recent advances in our understanding of plant metabolic and molecular responses to stress have made it clear that many abiotic stresses elicit similar fundamental mechanisms. Adaptation responses to drought, extremes of temperature, xenobiotics and air pollutants are now known to involve the response of both specific and common resistance mechanisms, which often include altered gene expression. The field of air pollution effects on vegetation has benefitted greatly from this unification since results obtained and advances made in allied fields are now directly relevant. The advent of molecular genetics has made possible the production of transgenic plants containing altered amounts of resistance gene products which enables the posing of experimental questions which could not be addressed only five years ago. Hypotheses concerning the relevance of specific metabolites and processes to known responses to air pollution stress can now be tested.
List of contents
1 The potential effect of global climate change on terrestrial vegetation.- 2 The potential effects of concurrent increases in temperature, CO2 and O3 on net photosynthesis, as mediated by RubisCO.- 3 Interactive effects of temperature and atmospheric CO2 on physiology and growth.- 4 CO2 effects on photosynthetic end product synthesis and feedback.- 5 Effects of altered carbon dioxide concentrations on gene expression.- 6 Free radical scavenging.- 7 Alterations of plant metabolism by ozone exposure.- 8 Molecular biology of Superoxide dismutase.- 9 Metabolic consequences of atmospheric sulphur influx into plants.- 10 Regulation of ion transport in guard cells.- 11 In vivo chlorophyll fluorescence as a probe of photosynthetic physiology.- 12 Responses of photosynthetic light-use efficiency and chloroplast development on exposure of leaves to ozone.- 13 Air pollution and RubisCO: effects and implications.- 14 Effects of air pollutants on the pathways of carbohydrate breakdown.- 15 Influence of air pollutants upon nitrogen metabolism.- 16 Nitrogen oxides, plant metabolism and forest ecosystem response.- 17 Forest declines: some perspectives on linking processes and patterns.- 18 Effects of ozone on interactions between plants, consumers and decomposers.- 19 Interactions between insects and air pollutants.- Participants at the 3rd International Symposium on Gaseous Pollutants and Plant Metabolism.
