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Cold Air Pools (CAPs) as Natural Freezers for the Study of Plant Responses to Low Temperatures
  • Enara Alday 1, *,   
  • Usue Pérez-López 1,   
  • Beatriz Fernández Marín 1, 2,   
  • Jaime Puértolas Simón 2,   
  • Águeda M. González Ródrigez 2,   
  • José Luis Martín Esquivel 3 and 
  • Jose Ignacio García-Plazaola 1

Received: 18 October 2024 | Revised: 26 March 2025 | Accepted: 10 April 2025 | Published: 16 April 2025

Abstract

The stratification of cold air is a phenomenon that typically occurs under certain topographic (closed ground depressions) and atmospheric conditions (stability and nocturnal radiative cooling). Under such conditions the drainage of the heavier cold air from the higher elevations causes its accumulation for days or weeks in the bottom of these depressions, leading temperatures to dramatically decrease and to decouple from regional climatic conditions. These particular locations which are frequent in karstic, volcanic and glacial landscapes, have been proposed to act as microrefugia of biodiversity in the context of climate warming. The existence of these cold air pools (CAPs) has been reported worldwide, and their biotic communities differ from equivalent sites out of these locations. However, there is an almost complete absence of ecophysiological studies concerning plant communities inhabiting CAPs. Thus, one of the objectives of this review is to hypothesize the effects of these specific conditions on the biology of the soil and the manner in which these plants should respond to such particular environmental conditions. Furthermore, given that temperature can decrease dramatically over short distances inside CAPs, in the present review we also propose their use as natural freezers for the study of plant responses to low temperatures.

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10.53941/plantecophys.2025.100006
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Volume 1, Issue 1
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Alday, E., Pérez-López, U., Fernández Marín, B., Puértolas Simón, J., González Ródrigez, Á. M., Martín Esquivel, J. L., & García-Plazaola, J. I. (2025). Cold Air Pools (CAPs) as Natural Freezers for the Study of Plant Responses to Low Temperatures. Plant Ecophysiology, 1(1), 6. https://doi.org/10.53941/plantecophys.2025.100006
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