Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Implications of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration on seed quality

  • Review Paper
  • Published:
International Journal of Biometeorology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Regeneration of plants through seed is governed by the ability and rate to germinate, which largely depends on the climatic variables prevailing during pre-harvest (mother plant growth) and post-harvest (processing and storage) stages. Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration [CO2] is increasing rapidly and is expected to surpass 550 ppm within this century. Elevated CO2 (e[CO2]) is reported to influence the mother plant at morphological, phenological, physiological and biochemical levels across the species. Such changes are expected to alter the quality components of the progeny seeds, which has received very little research attention. This review discusses about the possible implications of e[CO2] on quality attributes of seed affecting its planting value with much emphasis on seed weight, germination, vigour and its biochemical constituents. Research indicates that the effect of e[CO2] on seed weight is variable and influenced by the availability of nutrients particularly nitrogen. Likewise, seed germination shows a divergent effect, whereas seed vigour that indicates the strength of a seed usually is compromised under e[CO2]. It generally alters the balance between tissue carbon and nitrogen content, thus impairs the normal C:N ratio in progeny seed, which eventually impacts the next generation crop. For mitigation, while global breeding efforts focused on elite but narrow gene pool across the crop species shredded some of the ecologically important seed traits, such as thick and dark seed coat in legumes, such traits must be considered in designing breeding programs as they provide resilience to various stresses. We have suggested additional potential mitigation strategies and areas for future research.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

References ul

  • Ahmed W, Imran M, Yaseen M, ul Haq T, Jamshaid MU, Rukh S, Ikram RM, Ali M, Ali A, Maqbool M, Arif M (2020) Role of salicylic acid in regulating ethylene and physiological characteristics for alleviating salinity stress on germination, growth and yield of sweet pepper. PeerJ 8:e8475

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Andalo C, Godelle B, Lefranc M, Mousseau M, Till-Bottraud I (1996) Elevated CO2 decreases seed germination in Arabidopsis thaliana. Glob Chang Biol 2(2):129–135

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Andalo C, Raquin C, Machon N, Godelle B, Mousseau M (1998) Direct and maternal effects of elevated CO2 on early root growth of germinating Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings. Ann Bot 81(3):405–411

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blumenthal R, Rawson HM, Mckenzie E (1996) Changes in wheat grain quality due to doubling the level of atmospheric CO2. Cereal Chem 73:762–766

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Borisjuk L, Rolletschek H (2009) The oxygen status of the developing seed. New Phytol 182:17–30

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Chen C, Jiang Q, Ziska LH, Zhu J, Liu G, Zhang J, Ni K, Seneweera S, Zhu C (2015) Seed vigor of contrasting rice cultivars in response to elevated carbon dioxide. Field Crop Res 178:63–68

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edwards GR, Clark H, Newton PCD (2001) The effects of elevated CO2 on seed production and seedling recruitment in a sheep-grazed pasture. Oecologia 127:383–394

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Finch-Savage WE, Bassel GW (2016) Seed vigour and crop establishment: extending performance beyond adaptation. J Exp Bot 67(3):567–591

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Hampton JG, Boelt B, Rolston MP, Chastain TG (2013) Effects of elevated CO2 and temperature on seed quality. J Agric Sci 151(2):154–162

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Hikosaka K, Kinugasa T, Oikawa S, Onoda Y, Hirose T (2011) Effects of elevated CO2 concentration on seed production in C3 annual plants. J Exp Bot 62(4):1523–1530

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Huxman TE, Hamerlynck EP, Jordan DN, Salsman KJ, Smith SD (1998) The effects of parental CO2 environment on seed quality and subsequent seedling performance in Bromus rubens. Oecologia 114(2):202–208

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • IPCC (2014) Climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability. Part A: Global and sectoral aspects. Contribution of working group II to the Fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge university press, Cambridge

  • Jablonski LM, Wang X, Curtis PS (2002) Plant reproduction under elevated CO2 conditions: a meta-analysis of reports on 79 crop and wild species. New Phytol 156(1):9–26

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jisha KC, Vijayakumari K, Puthur JT (2013) Seed priming for abiotic stress tolerance: an overview. Acta Physiol Plant 35(5):1381–1396

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kalra N, Chakraborty D, Sharma A, Rai HK, Jolly M, Chander S, Kumar PR, Bhadraray S, Barman D, Mittal RB, Lal M (2008) Effect of increasing temperature on yield of some winter crops in northwest India. Curr Sci 94(1):82–88

    Google Scholar 

  • Kranitz PG, Aarssen LW, Dow JM (1991) The effect of genetically based differences in seed size on seedling survival in Arabidopsis thaliana (Brassicaceae). Am J Bot 78:446–450

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lamichaney A, Katiyar PK (2017) Plant emergence and T50 responses of two chickpea cultivar differing in seed coat colour to PEG-osmopriming at sub-optimal temperature. Natl Acad Sci Lett 40(6):399–403

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Lamichaney A, Katiyar PK, Laxmi V, Pratap A (2018) Variation in pre-harvest sprouting tolerance and fresh seed germination in mungbean (Vigna radiata L.) genotypes. Plant Genet Resour 16(5):437–445

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Lamichaney A, Kumar V, Katiyar PK (2018) Effect of seed priming induced metabolic changes on germination and field emergence of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.). J Environ Biol 39:522–528

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Lamichaney A, Swain DK, Biswal P, Kumar V, Singh NP, Hazra KK (2019) Elevated atmospheric carbon–dioxide affects seed vigour of rice (Oryza sativa L.). Environ Exp Bot 157:171–176

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Li X, Kristiansen K, Rosenqvist E, Liu F (2019) Elevated CO2 modulates the effects of drought and heat stress on plant water relations and grain yield in wheat. J Agron Crop Sci 205(4):362–371

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Li X, Ulfat A, Lv Z, Fang L, Jiang D, Liu F (2019) Effect of multigenerational exposure to elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration on grain quality in wheat. Environ Exp Bot 157:310–319

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Li Z, Xu J, Gao Y, Wang C, Guo G, Luo Y, Huang Y, Hu W, Sheteiwy MS, Guan Y, Hu J (2017) The synergistic priming effect of exogenous salicylic acid and H2O2 on chilling tolerance enhancement during maize (Zea mays L.) seed germination. Front Plant Sci 8:1153

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li Y, Yu Z, Jin J, Zhang Q, Wang G, Liu C, Wu J, Wang C, Liu X (2018) Impact of elevated CO2 on seed quality of soybean at the fresh edible and mature stages. Front Plant Sci 9:1413

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maity A, Chakrabarty SK (2013) Effect of environmental factors on hybrid seed quality of Indian mustard (Brassica juncea). Afr J Agric Res 8(48):6213–6219

    Google Scholar 

  • Maity A, Pramanik P (2013) Climate change and seed quality: an alarming issue in crop husbandry. Curr Sci 105(10):1336–1338

    Google Scholar 

  • Maity A, Vijay D, Mukherjee A, Lamichaney A (2016) Potential impacts of climate change on quality seed production: a perspective of hill agriculture. In: Bisht J, Meena V, Mishra P, Pattanayak A (eds) Conservation Agriculture. Springer, Singapore, pp 459–485

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Maphosa L, Fitzgerald GJ, Panozzo J, Partington D, Walker C, Kant S (2019) Genotypic response of wheat under semi-arid conditions showed no specific responsive traits when grown under elevated CO2. Plant Prod Sci 22(3):333–344

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Marcos-Filho J (2015) Seed vigor testing: an overview of the past, present and future perspective. Sci Agric 72:363–374

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marty C, BassiriRad H (2014) Seed germination and rising atmospheric CO2 concentration: a meta-analysis of parental and direct effects. New Phytol 202:401–414

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • McDonald MB Jr (1980) Assessment of seed quality. Hortic Sci 15:784–788

    Google Scholar 

  • Mishra AK, Agrawal SB (2014) Cultivar specific response of CO2 fertilization on two tropical mungbean (Vigna radiata L.) cultivars: ROS generation, antioxidant status, physiology, growth, yield and seed quality. J Agron Crop Sci 200(4):273–289

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Mondoni A, Rossi G, Orsenigo S, Probert RJ (2012) Climate warming could shift the timing of seed germination in alpine plants. Ann Bot 110(1):155–164

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nedunchezhiyan V, Velusamy M, Subburamu K (2020) Seed priming to mitigate the impact of elevated carbon dioxide associated temperature stress on germination in rice (Oryza sativa L.). Arch Agron Soil Sci 66(1):83–95

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Pal G, Channanamchery R, Singh RK, Kethineni UB, Ram H, Prasad SR (2016) An economic analysis of pigeonpea seed production technology and its adoption behavior: Indian context. Sci World J 2016:1–7

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pal M, Chaturvedi A, Pandey S, Bahuguna RN, Khetarpal S, Anand A (2014) Rising atmospheric CO2 may affect oil quality and seed yield of sunflower (Helianthus annus L.). Acta Physiol Plant 36:2853–2861

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Palit P, Kudapa H, Zougmore R, Kholova J, Whitbread A, Sharma M, Varshney RK (2020) An integrated research framework combining genomics, systems biology, physiology, modelling and breeding for legume improvement in response to elevated CO2 under climate change scenario. Curr Plant Biol 100149

  • Perry DA (1978) Report of the vigour test committee 1974-1977. Seed Sci Technol 6:159–181

    Google Scholar 

  • Prasad PV, Boote KJ, Allen LH Jr, Thomas JM (2002) Effects of elevated temperature and carbon dioxide on seed-set and yield of kidney bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.). Glob Chang Biol 8(8):710–721

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Quaderi MM, Reid DM (2005) Growth and physiological responses of canola (Brassica napus) to UV–B and CO2 under controlled environment conditions. Physiol Plant 125:247–259

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rashid M, Hampton JG, Rolston MP, Khan KM, Saville DJ (2018) Heat stress during seed development affects forage brassica (Brassica napus L.) seed quality. J Agron Crop Sci 204(2):147–154

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Rolletschek H, Borisjuk L, Sanchez-García A, Gotor C, Romero LC, Martínez-Rivas JM, Mancha M (2007) Temperature-dependent endogenous oxygen concentration regulates microsomal oleate desaturase in developing sunflower seeds. J Exp Bot 58:3171–3181

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Saha S, Chakraborty D, Sehgal VK, Pal M (2015) Rising atmospheric CO2: potential impacts on chickpea seed quality. Agric Ecosyst Environ 203:140–146

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Sanhewe AJ, Ellis RH, Hong TD, Wheeler TR, Batts GR, Hadley P, Morrison JIL (1996) The effect of temperature and CO2 on seed quality development in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). J Exp Bot 47:631–637

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Singh VP, Kumar J, Singh M, Singh S, Prasad SM, Dwivedi R, Singh MP (2016) Role of salicylic acid-seed priming in the regulation of chromium (VI) and UV-B toxicity in maize seedlings. Plant Growth Regul 78(1):79–91

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Singh B, Singh SK, Matcha SK, Kakani VG, Wijewardana C, Chastain D, Gao W, Reddy KR (2019) Parental environmental effects on seed quality and germination response to temperature of Andropogon gerardii. Agronomy 9(6):304

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Steinger T, Gall R, Schmid B (2000) Maternal and direct effects of elevated CO2 on seed provisioning, germination and seedling growth in Bromus erectus. Oecologia 123(4):475–480

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Terashima I, Shuichi Y, Hitoshi S (2014) Plant responses to CO2: background and perspectives. Plant Cell Physiol 55(2):237–240

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Thinh NC, Kumagai E, Shimono H, Kawasaki M (2017) Effects of elevated CO2 concentration on bulbil germination and early seedling growth in Chinese yam under different air temperatures. Plant Prod Sci 20(3):313–322

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thomas JMG, Prasad PVV, Boote KJ, Allen LH Jr (2009) Seed composition, seedling emergence and early seedling vigour of red kidney bean seed produced at elevated temperature and carbon dioxide. J Agron Crop Sci 195(2):148–156

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Thompson M, Gamage D, Hirotsu N, Martin A, Seneweera S (2017) Effects of elevated carbon dioxide on photosynthesis and carbon partitioning: a perspective on root sugar sensing and hormonal crosstalk. Front Physiol 8:578

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Uprety DC, Sen S, Dwivedi N (2010) Rising atmospheric carbon dioxide on grain quality in crop plants. Physiol Mol Biol Plants 16:15–227

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wagner J, Luscher A, Hillebrand C, Kobald B, Spitaler N, Larcher W (2001) Sexual reproduction of Lolium perenne L. and Trifolium repens L. under free air CO2 enrichment (FACE) at two levels of nitrogen application. Plant Cell Environ 24(9):957–966

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Way DA, Ladeau SL, McCarthy HR, Clark JS, Oren RAM, Finzi AC, Jackson RB (2010) Greater seed production in elevated CO2 is not accompanied by reduced seed quality in Pinus taeda L. Global Change Biol 16(3):1046–1056

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Williams M, Shewry PR, Lawlor DW, Harwood JL (1995) The effects of elevated temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration on the quality of grain lipids in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) grown at two levels of nitrogen application. Plant Cell Environ 18:999–1009

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Wulf RD, Alexander HM (1985) Interspecific variation in the response to CO2 enrichment in seeds and seedlings of Plantago lanceolata. Oecologia 66(3):458–460

  • Zheng G, Chen J, Li W (2020) Impacts of CO2 elevation on the physiology and seed quality of soybean. Plant Divers 42(1):44–51

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ziska LH, Bunce JA (1993) The influence of elevated CO2 and temperature on seed germination and emergence from soil. Field Crop Res 34:147–157

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgement

The authors acknowledge their respective organizations for the recurrent funding for research and the BioRender (639 Queen Street West, Toronto, ON, Canada) that was used for preparing the illustrations.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Crop Improvement Division, Indian Institute of Pulses Research, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, 208024, India

    Amrit Lamichaney

  2. Seed Technology Division, Indian Grassland and Fodder Research Institute, Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, 284003, India

    Aniruddha Maity

  3. Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843, USA

    Aniruddha Maity

Authors
  1. Amrit Lamichaney
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Aniruddha Maity
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Amrit Lamichaney or Aniruddha Maity.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Lamichaney, A., Maity, A. Implications of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration on seed quality. Int J Biometeorol 65, 805–812 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-020-02073-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-020-02073-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation