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JXB Advance Access originally published online on April 20, 2009
Journal of Experimental Botany 2009 60(10):2827-2838; doi:10.1093/jxb/erp080
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© The Author [2009]. Published by Oxford University Press [on behalf of the Society for Experimental Biology]. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

This article appears in the following Journal of Experimental Botany issue: Special Issue: Crop Science for a Changing Climate and Plant Biomass for Food and Energy [View the issue table of contents]

REVIEW-ARTICLE

Integrating pests and pathogens into the climate change/food security debate

Peter J. Gregory1,*, Scott N. Johnson1, Adrian C. Newton1 and John S. I. Ingram2

1SCRI (Scottish Crop Research Institute), Invergowrie, Dundee DD2 5DA, UK
2GECAFS International Project Office, Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University Centre for the Environment, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK

* To whom correspondence should be addressed: E-mail: peter.gregory{at}scri.ac.uk

While many studies have demonstrated the sensitivities of plants and of crop yield to a changing climate, a major challenge for the agricultural research community is to relate these findings to the broader societal concern with food security. This paper reviews the direct effects of climate on both crop growth and yield and on plant pests and pathogens and the interactions that may occur between crops, pests, and pathogens under changed climate. Finally, we consider the contribution that better understanding of the roles of pests and pathogens in crop production systems might make to enhanced food security. Evidence for the measured climate change on crops and their associated pests and pathogens is starting to be documented. Globally atmospheric [CO2] has increased, and in northern latitudes mean temperature at many locations has increased by about 1.0–1.4 °C with accompanying changes in pest and pathogen incidence and to farming practices. Many pests and pathogens exhibit considerable capacity for generating, recombining, and selecting fit combinations of variants in key pathogenicity, fitness, and aggressiveness traits that there is little doubt that any new opportunities resulting from climate change will be exploited by them. However, the interactions between crops and pests and pathogens are complex and poorly understood in the context of climate change. More mechanistic inclusion of pests and pathogen effects in crop models would lead to more realistic predictions of crop production on a regional scale and thereby assist in the development of more robust regional food security policies.

Key words: Crop–pathogen interactions, crop-pest interactions, crop productivity, yield

Received 21 November 2008; Revised 25 February 2009 Accepted 27 February 2009


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