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

Abstract

Background Global climate is changing more rapidly than ever, threatening plant growth and productivity while exerting considerable direct and indirect effects on the quality and quantity of plant nutrients. Scope This review focuses on the global impact of climate change on the nutritional value of plant foods. It showcases the existing evidence linking the effects of climate change factors on crop nutrition and the concentration of nutrients in edible plant parts. It focuses on the effect of elevated CO 2 (eCO 2), elevated temperature (eT), salinity, waterlogging and drought stresses, and what is known regarding their direct and indirect influence on nutrient availability. Furthermore, it provides possible strategies to preserve the nutritional composition of plant foods under changing climates. Conclusions Climate change has an impact on the accumulation of minerals and protein in crop plants, with eCO 2 being the underlying factor of most of the reported changes. The effects are clearly dependent on the type, intensity and duration of the imposed stress, plant genotype and developmental stage. Strong interactions (both positive and negative) can be found between individual climatic factors and soil availability of nitrogen (N), potassium (K), iron (Fe) and phosphorous (P). The development of future interventions to ensure that the world's population has access to plentiful, safe and nutritious food may need to rely on breeding for nutrients under the context of climate change, including legumes in cropping systems, better farm management practices and utilization of microbial inoculants that enhance nutrient availability.

Effects of Zinc Pollution and Compost Amendment on the Root Microbiome of a Metal Tolerant Poplar Clone

“…Our results are consistent with previous findings where the application of CMP did not increase Zn concentrations in the plant organs or it decreased it slightly (Zhou et al, 2017). Soares et al (2019) reported that broad bean plants accumulated increasing levels of Zn in the treatments with low or moderate CMP addition to the soils; in contrast, its content decreased significantly in the different organs of the plants with higher soil CMP additions. The authors postulated that this phenomenon might be caused by the lower available Zn content into the soil due to CMP sequestration.…”

Drought-hardening improves drought tolerance in Nicotiana tabacum at physiological, biochemical, and molecular levels

“…Agriculture and climate change are interrelated to each other, and the global climate is changing more rapidly than ever before [1]. Water limitation is a major constraint in global crop growth, development, and production, and climate change is the leading cause of it, thus worsening this situation extravagantly with adverse effects on agriculture in most regions of the world [2,3].…”

Azolla filiculoides L. as a source of metal-tolerant microorganisms

“…Plant-associated microorganisms produce substances such as phytohormones and antibiotics which support plant growth and provide protection against pathogens (Plant Growth Promoting Bacteria, PGPB) [4,8,9]. This property can help improve crop production-one of today's most important issues due to rising human population and the shortage in resources [10]. In addition, these microorganisms can help plants to survive stress conditions, e.g.…”