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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Aberdeen, Idaho » Small Grains and Potato Germplasm Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #315833
Title: Impacts of elevated atmospheric CO2 on nutrient content and yield of important food crops

Author
item DIETTERICH, LEE - University Of Pennsylvania
item ZANOBETTI, ANTONELLA - Harvard School Of Public Health
item KLOOG, ITAI - Harvard School Of Public Health
item HUYBERS, PETER - Harvard University
item LEAKEY, ANDREW - University Of Illinois
item BLOOM, ARNOLD - University Of California
item CARLISLE, ELI - University Of California
item FITZGERALD, GLENN - Department Of Primary Industries
item HASEGAWA, TOSHIHIRO - National Institute For Agro-Environmental Sciences
item HOLBROOK, N.MICHELE - Harvard University
item Nelson, Randall
item OTTMAN, MICHAEL - University Of Arizona
item Raboy, Victor
item SAKAI, HIDEMITSU - National Institute For Agro-Environmental Sciences
item SARTOR, KARLA - Nature Conservancy
item SCHWARTZ, JOEL - Harvard School Of Public Health
item SENEWEERA, SAMAN - University Of Melbourne
item TAUSZ, MICHAEL - University Of Melbourne
item USUI, YASUHIRO - National Institute For Agro-Environmental Sciences
item MYERS, SAMUEL - Harvard School Of Public Health

Submitted to: Scientific Data
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/17/2015
Publication Date: 7/21/2015
Citation: Dietterich, L.H., Zanobetti, A., Kloog, I., Huybers, P., Leakey, A.D., Bloom, A., Carlisle, E., Fitzgerald, G., Hasegawa, T., Holbrook, N., Nelson, R.L., Ottman, M.J., Raboy, V., Sakai, H., Sartor, K.A., Schwartz, J., Seneweera, S., Tausz, M., Usui, Y., Myers, S.S. 2015. Impacts of elevated atmospheric CO2 on nutrient content and yield of important food crops. Scientific Data. 2:150036. doi: 10.1038/sdata.2015.36.

Interpretive Summary: More research is needed to understand how global climatic change might impact the nutritional quality of basic food crops. One of the most important aspects of cereal and legume nutritional quality when used in human foods is their bioavailability of mineral nutrients like iron, zinc and protein. Factors which affect mineral bioavailability include the amount of minerals in grain- or legume-derived foods, but also include the levels of anti-nutrients like phytic acid. In this study of several food crops including wheat, rice, maize, soybeans and field pea, it was demonstrated that elevated CO2, a possible component of climate change, can result in reduced levels of zinc, iron and protein in “C3” crops such as wheat, rice, soybean and field pea, but not in a “C4” crop like maize. The biological basis for this is probably that “C4” crops utilize CO2 more efficiently, and in a different manner, than do C3 crops. Reductions in phytic acid were also observed, but were not observed consistently across different crops, and the differences observed would not greatly alter nutritional quality. Therefore, global climate change may have a negative impact on crop nutritional quality in terms of their zinc, iron and protein levels. Crop breeders will need to include breeding for maintenance or increase of these nutritionally important food constituents as global climate change occurs in the future. This publication will put all of the data acquired for these studies in an open-access, on-line journal database that is becoming the standard approach.

Technical Abstract: One of the many ways that climate change may affect human health is by altering the nutrient content of food crops. However, previous attempts to study the effects of increased atmospheric CO2 on crop nutrition have been limited by small sample sizes and/or artificial growing conditions. Here we present data on the nutritional content of the edible portions of 41 cultivars of six major crop species grown using free-air CO2 enrichment (FACE) technology to expose crops to ambient and elevated CO2 concentrations in otherwise normal field cultivation conditions. This data, collected across three continents, represents more than ten times as much data on the nutrient content of crops grown in FACE experiments than was previously available. We expect it to be deeply useful to future studies, such as efforts to understand the impacts of elevated atmospheric CO2 on crop macro- and micronutrient concentrations, or attempts to alleviate harmful effects of these changes for the billions of people who depend on these crops for essential nutrients.