Local and Indigenous communities warn of a significant decrease in the abundance of wild edible plants and mushrooms that negatively impacts their nutrition and food security, from local to global scales.
Seven to nine percent of all vascular plant species occurring in Europe are globally threatened. The researchers combined Red Lists of endangered plant species in Europe with data on their global distribution. It helps assess the overall level of threat to plant species and thus supports the basis of international nature conservation activities.
First-of-its-kind analysis suggests declines in land suitability in most major producing countries. A new analysis predicts that, as climate change progresses, the most suitable regions for growing coffee arabica, cashews, and avocados will decline in some of the main countries that produce these crops.
A new study provides key insights into how and why tree populations migrate in response to climate change at the continental scale.
Feeling the heat: Steroid hormones contribute to the heat stress resistance of plants. Plants, like other organisms, can be severely affected by heat stress. To increase their chances of survival, they activate the heat shock response, a molecular pathway also employed by human and animal cells for stress protection. Researchers have now discovered that plant steroid hormones can promote this response in plants.
Scientists have developed ways to decipher effects of the CO2 rise during the past 100 years on metabolic fluxes of the key plant species in peatlands, mosses.
Most organisms follow a timetable – when to reproduce, when to migrate, so on so forth! The timing of such key periodic life events is known as phenology and is crucial for organism’s survival and their contributions to ecosystem functions. One of the most reported responses of organisms to contemporary climate change is shifts in their phenology. Ecologists have already shown that phenology of many plants are advancing due to climate change, for instance, many plants are flowering earlier during the growing season. But little was known how plant phenological changes aboveground matches with plant phenological changes belowground due to climate change.
In a new study, researchers used citizen-science data to determine the cause of the anomalous bloom and predict when similar events might occur.
Researchers are optimistic the value and versatility of one of the world’s top crops will be improved following the discovery of genes which could increase the grain size of sorghum.
The recent IPCC report has been called a wake-up call. It’s not. That was 30 years ago. Since then, we’ve been hitting the snooze button. We are starting to see the beginning of catastrophic climate change. This is already affecting our ability to feed everyone, the nutritional quality of plants and their interactions with animals (including us), human health and biodiversity. This is exacerbated by clearing of native forests and destruction of natural ecosystems for short term gain. The warming is not going to stop at 1.5 °C, or 2°C or even 5°C unless action is taken across the board. There is an urgent need to make it easier for individuals, industry, and agriculture to decarbonise the economy and preserve the environment.
