71Chapter 4
Combination of Elevated CO
2
Levels and Soil
Contaminants’ Stress in Wheat and Rice
Hongyan Guo, Hui Zhou, Yaodan Zhang, Wenchao Du, Yuanyuan Sun,
Ying Yin, Daping Pei, Rong Ji, Jichun Wu, Xiaorong Wang and Jianguo Zhu
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015
R. Mahalingam (ed.), Combined Stresses in Plants, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-07899-1_4
H. Guo () · H. Zhou · Y. Zhang · W. Du · Y. Yin · D. Pei · R. Ji · X. Wang
State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of Environment,
Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China
e-mail: [email protected]
J. Zhu
State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science,
Chinese Academy of Science, Nanjing 210008, Jiangsu, China
e-mail: [email protected]
Y. Sun · J. Wu
State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of Earth Sciences
and Engineering, Hydrosciences Department, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China
H. Guo
Institute for Climate and Global Change Research (ICGCR), Nanjing University,
Nanjing 210093, China
4.1 Introduction
With increasing global industrialization, the atmospheric CO 2 concentration has
risen from approximately 280 mmol mol−1 in preindustrial times to approximately
380 mmol mol−1 now, and it is expected to continue increasing in the future (IPCC
2007 ). Elevated atmospheric CO 2 levels can stimulate photosynthesis (Zhang et al.
2008 ), enhance carbon deposition in soil (Hill et al. 2007 ), and change the rhizo-
sphere conditions of the plant, leading to increases in biomass and yields of crops
(Delucia et al. 1997 ; Lieffering et al. 2004 ; Liu et al. 2008 ).
Some industrial, mining, and agricultural activities have contaminated soils
with heavy metals, and such pollution is increasingly becoming a serious environ-
mental problem. In China, more than 2.0 × 107 ha of agricultural land is reportedly
Reprinted (adapted) with permission from elevated CO 2 levels affects the concentrations of
copper and cadmium in crops grown in soil contaminated with heavy metals under fully open-air
field conditions. Copyright (2011) American Chemical Society.