Vol. 80 No. 1 (2025)
Articles

FO3X (Ozone FACE – free air controlled exposure): An innovative infrastructure for a realistic assessment of the impact of tropospheric ozone on vegetation

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  • Leonardo Lazzara,
  • Elena Marra,
  • Barbara Baesso Moura,
  • Jacopo Manzini,
  • Andrea Viviano,
  • Cesare Garosi,
  • Yasutomo Hoshika,
  • Elena Paoletti
Leonardo Lazzara
Istituto di Ricerca sugli Ecosistemi Terrestri (IRET), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Via Madonna del Piano 10, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italia.
Elena Marra
stituto di Ricerca sugli Ecosistemi Terrestri (IRET), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Via Madonna del Piano 10, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italia.
Barbara Baesso Moura
stituto di Ricerca sugli Ecosistemi Terrestri (IRET), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Via Madonna del Piano 10, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italia. National Biodiversity Future Center (NBFC), Palermo 90133, Italia.
Jacopo Manzini
Istituto di Ricerca sugli Ecosistemi Terrestri (IRET), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Via Madonna del Piano 10, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italia. ). Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Agrarie, Alimentari, Ambientali e Forestali (DAGRI), Università degli Studi di Firenze, Piazzale delle Cascine 18, 50144 Firenze, Italia.
Andrea Viviano
Istituto di Ricerca sugli Ecosistemi Terrestri (IRET), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Via Madonna del Piano 10, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italia. ). Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Agrarie, Alimentari, Ambientali e Forestali (DAGRI), Università degli Studi di Firenze, Piazzale delle Cascine 18, 50144 Firenze, Italia.
Cesare Garosi
stituto di Ricerca sugli Ecosistemi Terrestri (IRET), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Via Madonna del Piano 10, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italia.
Yasutomo Hoshika
Istituto di Ricerca sugli Ecosistemi Terrestri (IRET), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Via Madonna del Piano 10, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italia. National Biodiversity Future Center (NBFC), Palermo 90133, Italia
Elena Paoletti
Istituto di Ricerca sugli Ecosistemi Terrestri (IRET), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Via Madonna del Piano 10, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italia. National Biodiversity Future Center (NBFC), Palermo 90133, Italia
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/ifm-1155

Published 2025-05-06

How to Cite

Lazzara, L., Marra, E., Moura, B. B., Manzini, J., Viviano, A., Garosi, C., Hoshika, Y., & Paoletti, E. (2025). FO3X (Ozone FACE – free air controlled exposure): An innovative infrastructure for a realistic assessment of the impact of tropospheric ozone on vegetation. L’Italia Forestale E Montana, 80(1), 7–22. https://doi.org/10.36253/ifm-1155

Copyright (c) 2025 Leonardo Lazzara, Elena Marra, Barbara Baesso Moura, Jacopo Manzini, Andrea Viviano, Cesare Garosi, Yasutomo Hoshika, Elena Paoletti

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Tropospheric ozone (O3) is an oxidative air pollutant causing a significant negative effect on forest species. Therefore, it is essential to develop exposure systems that can provide realistic estimates of plant responses to O3 under real world conditions. This article focuses on an O3 Free-Air Controlled Exposure (FACE) system developed in Italy (FO3X facility). Since 2015, the FO3X has been running as a last generation O3 FACE facility at the CNR experimental garden in central Italy, which is a unique facility in Mediterranean Europe within the AnaEE (Analysis and Experimentation on Ecosystems) European research infrastructure. This facility allows the exposure of plants to three levels of O3 concentrations (ambient, 1.5- and 2.0-times ambient concentration), with main environmental variables continuously monitored. This paper also introduces the five modern O3 FACE facilities for plant species currently running in the world and a further technological development with perspective for climate change studies.

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