Integrated Smart PHYTOTRON

Coordinates 41.9036428022199, 12.514534957176009

Contact name Fausto Manes

CIVIS Label No

Acronym PHYTOTRON-SRI

Scientific domain

PE8_11 - Environmental engineering, e.g. sustainable design, waste and water treatment, recycling, regeneration or recovery of compounds, carbon capture & storage - Products and Processes Engineering

Keywords

cell biology

Environmental pollution

climate change

ecophysiology

plant pathology

Partner institution

Sapienza Università di Roma

Website No

Technical staff available No

Remote access details the infrastructure is opne to non-civis users for a 30% of the dedicated working time under the regulations governing use (see attached document)

Remote access available No

Open to external users No

Equipment The Integrated Smart PHYTOTRON will be used for studying the structural and functional responses of plants to multiple and interacting abiotic and biotic stress providing the opportunity to set up complex experimental designs. In particular, different research lines can take advantages of this facility: 1. Studies on Global Changes impact through the characterization of morphological and ecophysiological effects of pollutants (tropospheric ozone, particulate matter, heavy metals), CO2 increase, nitrogen deposition, drought and salinity stress on vegetation, by using non-invasive and non-destructive measurement techniques. 2. Development of new standardized methods of bioindication and biomonitoring of environmental quality (air, water, soil) in natural and urban ecosystems and in agroecosystems, in the frame of the UNECE/ICP Vegetation Programme. 3. Quantification of the impacts of multi-stress on stomatal conductance and assimilation rate in order to set critical O3 levels for Mediterranean climates, improving model reliability for Mediterranean ecosystems. 4. Characterization of the functional response of natural plant species to different pollution levels in air, water, and soil to check their ability of phytoremediation and phytoextraction. 5. Sustainable production of plant-derived food: i) setting up protocols for biostimulating plant defenses and productivity through natural compounds or beneficial organisms; ii), selecting genotype and/or varieties resistant to pathogen & stress (e.g pollutants); iii) catch early markers of plant stress for designing sensors usable at field level for preventing diseases. 6. The temporal variability of the NPP-GPP ratio of saplings growing under limiting environmental conditions. The carbon-use efficiency, or the ratio between net primary production (NPP) and gross primary production (GPP), represents a convenient way to analyze the C allocation at the stand level at different growing conditions. Experiments carried out in controlled conditions will allow calibrating process-based models in order to foresee the NPP/GPP ratio trends under future environmental climate. 7. The Integrated Smart PHYTOTRON can be used for studying the responses of model plants, tolerant and hyperaccumulator plants and crops to environmental stresses such as heavy metals/metalloids. The smart PHYTOTRON will allow to cultivate plants under different environmental conditions including different soil contaminations and to analyze the damages that its cause to the organization of the root, the first plant organ exposed to the soil pollutants. In particular, it will possible to study the effects of soil contamination on root meristem organization and definition, because it is known that the root meristem is responsible for the development and function of the entire organ and it is also the primary target of toxicity caused by soil pollutants. Moreover, the PHYTOTRON will allow studying the effects of more heavy metals/metalloids, taken individually or together, on the growth of the root system and to evaluate their effects on total plant biomass. It will also be useful to investigate the role of hormones or volatile hormone-like compounds, such as ethylene or jasmonates, or of signal molecules involved in stress responses such as nitric oxide, during the development of the root system of plants exposed to toxic metals. This type of integrated PHYTOTRON will allow studying the plant responses to low temperatures, especially the effects on the development, growth, and maturation of the fruit of an important Mediterranean species such as the olive tree. These researches also need suitable spaces to expose the plant to defined temperatures before submitting them to the necessary analyses to evaluate the response/adaptation of the plants. 8. Testing the effects that environmental parameters and exposure to pollutants such as O3, NOx, SO2, heavy metals, can have on the growth rate of species that can be used in the field of renewable and sustainable energy such as Zea mays L. and Brassica napus L. The characteristics of the Integrated Smart PHYTOTRON allow exposing the selected species on different stress or suboptimal growth condition in order to verify if the species-specific response can ameliorate the yield and the quality of the raw material to optimize the biofuel production chain. 9. Plant-growth-promoting fungi (bio-stimulation, nutrition, bio-protection, bio-remediation) of species of medicinal or agronomic interest in order to develop sustainable cultivation strategies. This technological infrastructure is suitable to investigate the beneficial effects of fungi to increase plant and/or soil biota tolerance to abiotic stresses such as heavy metals and xenobiotics.

Open access to updated information database No

Online booking system details No

Online booking system available No

Description The SMART PHYTOTRON is a multifunctional infrastructure that can be used by students of master's degrees for practical activities, and also for carrying out experimental activities of doctoral students, as well as for researchers from Sapienza or other Academic Institutions. Collaborations activities will be carried out in accordance with the already approved use regulation of this infrastructure.