Impacts of Air Quality and Climate Change on Vegetation

Dear Colleagues,

Atmospheric pollution is known to negatively affect vegetation at different levels, from cells to ecosystems. A multitude of plant’s responses have been described, ranging from the impairment of some biochemical pathways to an overall reduction of plant productivity, with relevant economic concern for crop production and forestry.

Some species can be more sensitive to air pollution than others, and this could affect a plant’s competition in the ecosystems and biodiversity. Again, deposition fluxes of airborne pollutants can impair nutrient cycles of the ecosystems with special regards to the carbon and nitrogen ones. Different pollutants follow different deposition and uptake pathways. However not all the total amount of pollutant deposited on an ecosystem is uptaken by plants, while only the uptaken fraction led to the phytotoxycally-active dose. This is clear, e.g., for ozone, where only the stomatal uptake is relevant to describe the magnitude of the negative effects on vegetation. On the other hand, the correct identification and assessment of the non-stomatal pathways are quite important to quantify the bioavailable amount of pollutant and because they may affect many other ecosystem functions.

Climate interacts with the uptake processes in different ways, for example by affecting the stomatal openings through the availability of water for plants. The climate changes foreseen for the near future will likely affect both the plants’ uptake and plant’s response to the air pollutants in many areas of the world.

This Special Issue welcomes studies from many part of the world on the aforementioned topics. Contributions may range from experiments and investigations on dose–effect relationship for different types of vegetation to model assessment of air pollution impacts on regional or continental areas, from direct measurements of deposition fluxes of airborne pollutant in different ecosystems to the development of mechanistic description of the different deposition processes for models development and improvement. Contributes from areas of the world that are poorly covered by these studies are particularly encouraged.

Dr. Giacomo Gerosa
Dr. Felicity Hayes
Dr. Ignacio González Fernández
Guest Editors

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