No Stomatal Response to Ethylene

Abstract

Stomata are sensitive to changes in the intercellular carbon dioxide concentration (2); we do not know the underlying mechanism. CO2 competitively inhibits many morphogenetic effects of ethylene (1, 3). We therefore studied whether ethylene in turn acts as a competitive inhibitor of stomatal re- sponses to CO2 and supplemented our studies by applying two other gases, allene (CMH4) and nitrous oxide (N20), which due to the electronic configuration of their molecules could also compete for the CO2 receptor in the guard cell.