Tag: Climate Change

With atmospheric CO2 levels increasing 100 times faster than historical levels, much attention has been paid to how crop plants respond to this elevated CO2 (eCO2). For angiosperms, eCO2 leads to increased CO2 assimilation and decreased photorespiration, but over time plants can adapt, leading to lower…

In this fantastic, engaging paper, Hu et al. carries the reader from the origins of life on land through the dramatic uplift of the Tibetan plateau and into the modern age of climate change, all through the lens of the “enigmatic” Takakia moss. It’s enigmatic because it has features that are more…

As global CO2 emissions continue to rise, wildlife faces new challenges due to climate change. The biotic and environmental factors impacted by the rising temperature and sea level pose unprecedented threat to the plants and lichens listed on the Endangered Species Act (ESA). In this paper, the tolerance…

Like all of Earth’s lifeforms, plants are already experiencing hardships due to the changing climate, and these stresses will get more extreme. Much effort has gone into breeding crops for climate resilience, less on trees which are both more diverse and less genetically tractable. Here, Allsup et…

Much of what is written about the impacts of climate change on food production is focused on the abiotic stresses that plants will experience, but biotic stresses will be equally impactful, as discussed in this fine review by Singh et al. The challenges in predicting climate impacts on plant disease…

As the effects of climate change become increasingly severe and evident, there is growing concern about the future of food production. However, unlike its impact on crop yields, there is little clarity on the effects of climate change on the foundation of most agricultural systems: seed production and…

In 2011, a group of scientists published an article called “One hundred important questions facing plant scientists”. Now, Armstrong et al. have provided an updated version of this, with an additional effort to draw on contributions from the global community, including non-specialists, to identify…

Climate change profoundly impacts plant communities, for example, by changing the geographic range of some species and locally extinguishing others. Yet these changes take time, maybe a few years, to be observed. This lag between climate and plant communities changes could result from the soil seed bank…