Foliar responses of five plant species to ozone and a sulphur dioxide/ozone mixture after a sulphur dioxide pre-exposure

Abstract

Plants that were pretreated with 0.15 ppm SO 2 for either 2 or 3 d before an intermittent O 3 or SO 2/O 3 exposure exhibited differences in per cent visible foliar injury that often varied significantly from plants that received no SO 2 pretreatment. Differences that were observed could not be explained on the basis of leaf diffusive resistance alone. The SO 2 pretreatment for 2 d caused a decrease in visible O 3 injury in white bean, an increase in visible O 3 injury in cucumber and radish, and had no effect on soybean and tomato. The same pretreatment caused an increase in visible injury from the SO 2/O 3 mixture in white bean, a decrease in visible injury for cucumber and tomato, and had no effect on soybean and radish. However, these same trends did not occur when the SO 2 pretreatment was increased to 3 d. Pretreatment with sub-acute levels of SO 2 can significantly alter a plant's response to O 3 or a mixture of SO 2/O 3, the change in response being sensitive to the pretreatment SO 2 dosage. The nature of the visible injury symptoms from O 3 or the pollutant mixture were not altered for any of the plant species regardless of the length of time of the SO 2 pretreatment and, generally, the onset of visible injury was not greatly altered.