Magda Pál

Introduction Atmospheric CO2 concentration is predicted to continue to rise from current ambient CO2 concentration of about 400 μmol CO2 mol−1 (NASA, 2023) to approx. 700 μmol CO2 mol−1, by the end of the 21st century (IPCC, 2007). Such increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration may profoundly affect plant growth, photosynthetic performance and crop productivity worldwide.

Ana Cao1, Noemi Gesteiro1, Rogelio Santiago1,2, Rosa Ana Malvar1,2 and Ana Butrón1* 1Misión Biológica de Galicia (CSIC), Pontevedra, Spain 2Agrobiología Ambiental, Calidad de Suelos y Plantas (UVIGO), Unidad Asociada a la MBG (CSIC), Pontevedra, Spain Fusarium verticillioides poses a threat to worldwide maize production due to its ability to infect maize kernel and synthesize fumonisins that can be accumulated above safety levels for humans and animals.

1 Introduction As sessile organisms, plants are constantly exposed to several threats, such as adverse ambient conditions, resource competition, and herbivore attacks; hence, they have developed highly sophisticated strategies to guarantee their survival. For instance, plant-plant interaction is a key mechanism for enhancing plant fitness in competitive scenarios, such as cultivar mixtures (Murphy and Dudley, 2009; Ninkovic et al., 2016).