Crops' Responses to Ozone in Mediterranean Environments

Abstract

The objective of this review is to provide an overview on Italian research initiatives on ozone effects on cropping systems. In this respect, we intended to summarize what has been done so far and what should be further investigated to advance both national and international researches on this topic. The Mediterranean environment, and most of the Italian peninsula, presents some peculiarities in terms of crop response to ozone since most physiological mechanisms activated upon exposure to this air pollutant, often overlap and interact with those that underlie plant adaptation to drought and hyperosmotic stress. In the following we will present the methodological approaches to study plant-ozone interactions as well as biochemical, physiological and agronomic responses in the context of representative Italian cropping systems.