Abstract
Maternal environment has been demonstrated to produce considerable impact on offspring growth. However, few studies have been carried out to investigate multi-generational maternal effects of elevated CO2 on plant growth and development. Here we present the first report on the responses of plant reproductive, photosynthetic, and cellular characteristics to elevated CO2 over 15 generations using Arabidopsis thaliana as a model system. We found that within an individual generation, elevated CO2 significantly advanced plant flowering, increased photosynthetic rate, increased the size and number of starch grains per chloroplast, reduced stomatal density, stomatal conductance, and transpiration rate, and resulted in a higher reproductive mass. Elevated CO2 did not significantly influence silique length and number of seeds per silique. Across 15 generations grown at elevated CO2 concentrations, however, there were no significant differences in these traits. In addition, a reciprocal sowing experiment demonstrated that elevated CO2 did not produce detectable maternal effects on the offspring after fifteen generations. Taken together, these results suggested that the maternal effects of elevated CO2 failed to extend to the offspring due to the potential lack of genetic variation for CO2 responsiveness, and future plants may not evolve specific adaptations to elevated CO2 concentrations.
Highlights
Over the century, the atmospheric CO2 concentration is projected to rise from the current level of about 370 parts per million to between 540 and 970 ppm [1]
Plants grown at elevated CO2 concentrations flowered about three days earlier than those grown at ambient CO2 concentrations in each generation
The average number of siliques and seeds per plant exposed to elevated CO2 concentrations were about 36% and 37% higher, respectively, than those exposed to ambient CO2 concentrations
Summary
The atmospheric CO2 concentration is projected to rise from the current level of about 370 parts per million (ppm) to between 540 and 970 ppm [1]. Given that CO2 is the raw material of photosynthesis, this global change will have profound effects on the structure and function of future plant populations [2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. A typical experimental approach used in most CO2 experiments to predict how future plants will respond to these changes is to expose individual plants or plant communities to ambient and elevated CO2 within a part, or one generation and compare their responses [3,9,10,11,12,13,14,15]. A major assumption in such experiments is that the responses of plants to elevated CO2 within one generation can be similar to those observed over many generations. An experimental test of the assumption is currently unavailable
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