Preserving the nutritional quality of crop plants under a changing climate: importance and strategies

Atmospheric CO(2) concentration ([CO(2)]) is now higher than it was at any time in the past 26 million years and is expected to nearly double during this century. Terrestrial plants with the C(3) photosynthetic pathway respond in the short term to increased [CO(2)] via increased net photosynthesis and decreased transpiration. In the longer term this increase is often offset by downregulation of photosynthetic capacity. But much of what is currently known about plant responses to elevated [CO(2)] comes from enclosure studies, where the responses of plants may be modified by size constraints and the limited life-cycle stages that are examined. Free-Air CO(2) Enrichment (FACE) was developed as a means to grow plants in the field at controlled elevation of CO(2) under fully open-air field conditions. The findings of FACE experiments are quantitatively summarized via meta-analytic statistics and compared to findings from chamber studies. Although trends agree with parallel summaries of enclosure studies, important quantitative differences emerge that have important implications both for predicting the future terrestrial biosphere and understanding how crops may need to be adapted to the changed and changing atmosphere.

Dietary deficiencies of zinc and iron are a substantial global public health problem. An estimated two billion people suffer these deficiencies, causing a loss of 63 million life-years annually. Most of these people depend on C3 grains and legumes as their primary dietary source of zinc and iron. Here we report that C3 grains and legumes have lower concentrations of zinc and iron when grown under field conditions at the elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration predicted for the middle of this century. C3 crops other than legumes also have lower concentrations of protein, whereas C4 crops seem to be less affected. Differences between cultivars of a single crop suggest that breeding for decreased sensitivity to atmospheric CO2 concentration could partly address these new challenges to global health.

Environmental stress factors such as drought, elevated temperature, salinity and rising CO₂ affect plant growth and pose a growing threat to sustainable agriculture. This has become a hot issue due to concerns about the effects of climate change on plant resources, biodiversity and global food security. Plant adaptation to stress involves key changes in the '-omic' architecture. Here, we present an overview of the physiological and molecular programs in stress adaptation focusing on how genes, proteins and metabolites change after individual and multiple environmental stresses. We address the role which '-omics' research, coupled to systems biology approaches, can play in future research on plants seemingly unable to adapt as well as those which can tolerate climatic change. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.