Environmental Science and Engineering Seminar

Plant stress in a changing climate will alter the mixture of biogenic volatile compounds emitted by plants into the atmosphere. Biogenic volatiles contribute to secondary organic aerosol (SOA) production, so these strong perturbations to the types of compounds emitted could have significant impacts on SOA production. Many of these compounds have not been traditionally studied for their aerosol formation potential, but they could play a larger and larger role in future climate regimes. This work will summarize changes in SOA formation from Scots pine emissions resulting from two types of insect herbivory stress: bark boring pine weevils and aphids. The influence of both plant stressors on SOA chemistry of the volatile emissions was driven by the sesquiterpene effect. However, the two stressors had very different impacts on the quantity and type of sesquiterpenes emitted by Scots pines.