Influence of ozone on cold acclimation in sugar maple seedlings

Abstract

During summer 1994, sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.) seedlings were grown in open-top chambers supplied with air containing near ambient ozone concentration (control, low O3) or three times the ambient ozone concentration (high O3). The rate of CO2 assimilation was significantly reduced by chronic exposure to a high concentration of ozone during the summer. During fall, seedlings were removed from the open-top chambers and acclimated to cold under natural conditions. In both species during cold acclimation, the starch concentration decreased, whereas the sucrose concentration increased. There was no treatment effect on the freezing tolerance of roots, even though roots in the high-O3 treatment accumulated higher concentrations of the cryoprotective oligosaccharides raffinose and stachyose than control roots. Cold acclimation occurred earlier and stachyose concentration of stems was higher in high-O3-treated seedlings than in low-O3-treated seedlings. Cold acclimation was associated with an earlier accumulation of ABA in the xylem sap of high-O3-treated seedlings compared with low-O3-treated seedlings.