Articles
Myers, Samuel. Climate Change is Sapping Nutrients from Our Food — and It Could Become a Global Crisis. Harvard University Center for the Environment, August 2019.
Stevens, Harry. You’re not crazy. Spring is getting earlier. The Washington Post, March 13, 2024.
Wright, Kassidy. Climate Change’s Impact on the Nutritional Value of Food. the momentum, accessed Jan. 2024.
Research
Ben Mariem, S., Soba, D., Zhou, B., Loladze, I., Morales, F., & Aranjuelo, I. (2021). Climate change, crop yields, and grain quality of C3 cereals: A meta-analysis of [CO2], temperature, and drought effects. Plants, 10(6), 1052. [PMID: 34074065]
Despite the positive effect of elevated [CO2], increases to grain yield seem to be counterbalanced by heat and drought stress. Regarding grain nutritional value and within the three environmental factors, the increase in [CO2] is possibly the more detrimental to face because it will affect cereal quality independently of the region.
Bourgault, M., Tausz-Posch, S., Greenwood, M., Löw, M., Henty, S., Armstrong, R. D., … & Tausz, M. (2021). Does Elevated [CO2] Only Increase Root Growth in the Topsoil? A FACE Study with Lentil in a Semi-Arid Environment. Plants, 10(4), 612.
Our limited data to compare responses to e[CO2] showed that root length increases in the topsoil were correlated with a lower yield response to e[CO2]. The increase in yield response was rather correlated with increases in root growth below 30 cm depth.
Chen, C. T., & Setter, T. L. (2021). Role of tuber developmental processes in response of potato to high temperature and elevated CO2. Plants, 10(5), 871.
Chunwu Zhu et al. Carbon dioxide (CO2) levels this century will alter the protein, micronutrients, and vitamin content of rice grains with potential health consequences for the poorest rice-dependent countries. Science Advances, 2018.
Dong, Jinlong et al. Effects of Elevated CO2 on Nutritional Quality of Vegetables: A Review. Frontiers in Plant Science, August 2018.
We conducted a meta-analysis using 57 articles consisting of 1,015 observations and found that eCO2 increased the concentrations of fructose, glucose, total soluble sugar, total antioxidant capacity, total phenols, total flavonoids, ascorbic acid, and calcium in the edible part of vegetables by 14.2%, 13.2%, 17.5%, 59.0%, 8.9%, 45.5%, 9.5%, and 8.2%, respectively, but decreased the concentrations of protein, nitrate, magnesium, iron, and zinc by 9.5%, 18.0%, 9.2%, 16.0%, and 9.4%. The concentrations of titratable acidity, total chlorophyll, carotenoids, lycopene, anthocyanins, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, copper, and manganese were not affected by eCO2.
Ehleringer, James R., Thure E. Cerling, and M. Denise Dearing. “Atmospheric CO2 as a global change driver influencing plant-animal interactions.” Integrative and Comparative Biology 42.3 (2002): 424-430. [Abstract only.]
Gomez-Zavaglia A, et al. Mitigation of emerging implications of climate change on food production systems. Food Res Int. August 2020.Liu S, et al. Zinc Homeostasis: An Emerging Therapeutic Target for Neuroinflammation Related Diseases. Biomolecules. February 2023.
Grüter, R., Trachsel, T., Laube, P., & Jaisli, I. (2022). Expected global suitability of coffee, cashew and avocado due to climate change. PloS one, 17(1), e0261976. [PMID: 35081123]
Jayawardena, D. M., Heckathorn, S. A., Rajanayake, K. K., Boldt, J. K., & Isailovic, D. (2021). Elevated carbon dioxide and chronic warming together decrease nitrogen uptake rate, net translocation, and assimilation in tomato. Plants, 10(4), 722.
Loladze, I., Nolan, J. M., Ziska, L. H., & Knobbe, A. R. (2019). Rising atmospheric CO2 lowers concentrations of plant carotenoids essential to human health: a meta‐analysis. Molecular nutrition & food research, 63(15), 1801047. [PMID: 31250968]
Loladze I. Hidden shift of the ionome of plants exposed to elevated CO₂depletes minerals at the base of human nutrition. Elife. May 2014.
Lüscher, Johann Martinez. “Effects of UV-B radiation on grapevine (Vitis vinifera cv. Tempranillo) leaf physiology and berry composition, framed within the climate change scenario (water deficit, elevated CO2 and elevated temperature).” PhD diss., Université de Bordeaux; Universidad de Navarra, 2014. [Full-text PDF.]
Martínez-Lüscher, Johann, et al. “Climate change conditions (elevated CO2 and temperature) and UV-B radiation affect grapevine (Vitis vinifera cv. Tempranillo) leaf carbon assimilation, altering fruit ripening rates.” Plant Science 236 (2015): 168-176.
Macdiarmid JI, et al. Nutrition from a climate change perspective. Proc Nutr Soc.August 2019. (Abstract.)
Myers, S., Fanzo, J., Wiebe, K., Huybers, P., & Smith, M. (2022). Current guidance underestimates risk of global environmental change to food security. bmj, 378. [PMID: 36175018]
Limited research points to non-linear relationships among many stressors, either reinforcing or offsetting each other. The toxic effect on crops of elevated ozone levels, for example, is expected to be weaker under higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations because most food plants can decrease stomatal intake and still receive the same amount of CO2, thereby limiting simultaneous ozone uptake. In the other direction, herbivorous pest pressure induces flowering crops to invest in defence over reproduction, reducing flower size, density, and nectar content, while also producing deterrent compounds in leaves, pollen, and nectar that are distasteful to pollinators. These responses have the unintended effect of causing plants to be less attractive to pollinators overall, reducing successful pollination and fruit yield in excess of that which might be damaged by pests.33 Both these examples show that the combined effect of any suite of stressors might result in unpredictable outcomes, which greatly complicates the ability to accurately forecast their net effect on crop yields, diets, and nutrition in a world rapidly changing across many dimensions.
Semba RD, et al. The Potential Impact of Climate Change on the Micronutrient-Rich Food Supply. Advances in Nutrition. February 2022.
Taub, D. “Effects of rising atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide on plants.” Nature Education Knowledge 1.8 (2010).
Wang, Zihao, et al. “Evolution of global terrestrial gross primary productivity trend.” Ecosystem Health and Sustainability (2024).
Increased global vegetation gross primary productivity (GPP) over the past decades has led to an enhanced terrestrial carbon sink, an important factor in mitigating global warming. However, the global spatiotemporal evolution of GPP trends is still under debate, largely limiting our understanding of the sustainability in terrestrial carbon sink. Here in this study, based on a dozen of long-term global GPP datasets, we found that global GPP trends fell significantly from 0.43 PgC year−2 in 1982–1999 to 0.17 PgC year−2 in 2000–2016, a signal detected across >68% of the terrestrial surface. The decrease in GPP trends was more pronounced from satellite-based GPP datasets than from process-based models, which may result from a decline in the CO2 fertilization effect. This finding therefore indicates that the terrestrial carbon sink may become saturated in the future, and highlights the urgent need of stricter strategies for reducing carbon emissions to mitigate global warming.
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