Elevated carbon dioxide decreases the adverse effects of higher temperature and drought stress by mitigating oxidative stress and improving water status in Arabidopsis thaliana

• Published in: Planta 2019-10, Vol.250 (4), p.1191-1214
• Main Authors: Gamar, Mohammad I. Abo, Kisiala, Anna, Emery, R. J. Neil, Yeung, Edward C., Stone, Sophia L., Qaderi, Mirwais M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Abscisic acid; Abscisic Acid - metabolism; Agriculture; Arabidopsis; Arabidopsis - genetics; Arabidopsis - physiology; Arabidopsis Proteins - genetics; Arabidopsis Proteins - metabolism; Arabidopsis thaliana; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Carbon dioxide; Carbon Dioxide - metabolism; Climate Change; Combinatorial analysis; Drought; Droughts; Ecology; Environmental factors; Environmental impact; Forestry; Genotypes; Global climate; Growth chambers; High temperature; Hot Temperature; Leaves; Life Sciences; Moisture content; ORIGINAL ARTICLE; Oxidative Stress; Phosphoprotein Phosphatases - genetics; Phosphoprotein Phosphatases - metabolism; Plant growth; Plant Growth Regulators - metabolism; Plant Sciences; Plant species; Proline; Rosette; Seedlings; Side effects; Soil - chemistry; Soil moisture; Soil water; Soil water potential; Stress, Physiological; Temperature effects; Water - physiology; Water potential; Zeatin; Zeatin riboside
• ISSN: 0032-0935; 1432-2048
• DOI: 10.1007/s00425-019-03213-3

Few studies have considered multiple aspects of plant responses to key components of global climate change, including higher temperature, elevated carbon dioxide (ECO₂), and drought. Hence, their individual and combinatorial effects on plants need to be investigated in the context of understanding climate change impact on plant growth and development. We investigated the interactive effects of temperature, CO₂, watering regime, and genotype on Arabidopsis thaliana (WT and ABA-insensitive mutant, abi1-1). Plants were grown in controlled-environment growth chambers under two temperature regimes (22/18 °C and 28/24 °C, 16 h light/8 h dark), two CO₂ concentrations (400 and 700 µmol mol⁻¹), and two watering regimes (well-watered and water-stressed) for 18 days. Plant growth, anatomical, physiological, molecular, and hormonal responses were determined. Our study provided valuable information about plant responses to the interactive effects of multiple environmental factors. We showed that drought and ECO₂ had larger effects on plants than higher temperatures. ECO₂ alleviated the detrimental effects of temperature and drought by mitigating oxidative stress and plant water status, and this positive effect was consistent across multiple response levels. The WT plants performed better than the abi1-1 plants; the former had higher rosette diameter, total dry mass, leaf and soil water potential, leaf moisture, proline, ethylene, transzeatin, isopentyladenine, and cis-zeatin riboside than the latter. The water-stressed plants of both genotypes accumulated more abscisic acid (ABA) than the well-watered plants; however, higher temperatures decreased the ability of WT plants to produce ABA in response to drought. We conclude that drought strongly, while higher temperature to a lesser extent, affects Arabidopsis seedlings, and ECO₂ reduces the adverse effects of these stressors more efficiently in the WT plants than in the abi1-1 plants. Findings from this study can be extrapolated to other plant species that share similar characteristics and/or family with Arabidopsis.