Vol. 82 No: 2

Title:
Invited Commentary: Climate change: the role of ex situ and cryo-conservation in the future security of economically important, vegetatively propagated plants

Authors:
PAUL T. LYNCH, ERICA E. BENSON and KEITH HARDING

pp: 157-160

Abstract:
At the end of 2006, Sir Nicholas Stern, adviser to the UK Government on the economics of climate change, presented his treatise the “Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change”. Central to Sir Nicholas`s Review was the supposition that the scientific evidence is now so overwhelming that climate change presents very real risks, and that these risks are of such magnitude, their deleterious impacts will be felt on a global scale, threatening humanity`s basic life support systems: water, food, health and land. Pivotal to offsetting current and potentially catastrophic environmental consequences of planetary warming will be the need to safeguard the sustainability and security of global food production. It has been predicted that, if warming continues, more than a million species could be extinct by 2050. Climate change also has enormous consequences for the sustainable use of those economically significant plant species upon which mankind is dependent. Environmental stability is critical to maintaining our agricultural, horticultural, forestry and agro-forestry industries, and their associated food and utility businesses. This is largely because plant growth, development and reproduction are regulated by seasonal cues. Furthermore, the limited range of environmental extremes that tropical and equatorial species can tolerate is being increasingly eroded by erratic weather conditions triggered by global warming. This has significant ramifications, as irreplaceable “hotspots” of biodiversity, such as the Amazon rainforest, are biomes of great influence and are pivotal to global environmental stability. Hence, our planet is extremely vulnerable to their demise. Climate change also has many insidious effects, including the likelihood of generating conditions that alter the geographical ranges of pests, pathogens, and their associated vectors, which will lead to changes in the epidemiology of crop diseases. For example, it has been suggested that global warming will result in an earlier northward migration of the aphid vectors that transmit viruses of potato, so that production of virus-free seed potatoes will no longer be possible in cooler present-day production areas such as Scotland.

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