Enhancing legume crop pollination and natural pest regulation for improved food security in changing African landscapes

AbstractEnsuring stable food supplies is recognized as a major challenge for the 21st century, and one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Biodiversity-based approaches to food security are increasingly being supported based on the fact that biodiversity can increase and stabilize crop yields. But agricultural systems are often highly fragmented and it is unclear how such fragmentation affects biodiversity and food production, limiting our capacity to manage agricultural landscapes for food security. Here, we develop a model of crop yield dynamics to investigate how fragmentation of natural habitats for agricultural conversion impacts food production, with a focus on crop pollination. Our results show that fragmentation produces spatial and biodiversity-mediated effects that affect the mean and stability of pollination-dependent crops, with strong consequences for food security. The net effects of fragmentation depend on the strength of the spillover of pollinators to crop land and the degree to which crops depend on animal pollination. Our study sheds new light in the food security debate by showing that high and stable yields depend on biodiversity and the spatial structure of agricultural landscapes, and by revealing the ecological mechanisms of food security in crop pollination systems.

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Pollinator declines: reconciling scales and implications for ecosystem services

F1000Research ◽

10.12688/f1000research.2-146.v1 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 2 ◽

pp. 146 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Ignasi Bartomeus ◽

Rachael Winfree

Keyword(s):

Food Security ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

Global Change ◽

Scientific Data ◽

Published Data ◽

Crop Pollination ◽

Northeastern North America ◽

Actual Contribution ◽

Species Specific ◽

Pollinator Declines

Despite the widespread concern about the fate of pollinators and the ecosystem services they deliver, we still have surprisingly scarce scientific data on the magnitude of pollinator declines and its actual contribution to crop pollination and food security. We use recently published data from northeastern North America to show that studies at both the local and regional scales are needed to understand pollinator declines, and that species-specific responses to global change are broadly consistent across scales. Second, we show that bee species that are currently delivering most of the ecosystem services (i.e. crop pollination) are not among the species showing declining trends, but rather appear to thrive in human-dominated landscapes.

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Physiology Based Approaches for Breeding of Next-Generation Food Legumes

Plants ◽

10.3390/plants7030072 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 7 (3) ◽

pp. 72 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Arun Shunmugam ◽

Udhaya Kannan ◽

Yunfei Jiang ◽

Ketema Daba ◽

Linda Gorim

Keyword(s):

Food Security ◽

Complex Traits ◽

Abiotic Stress Tolerance ◽

Crop Improvement ◽

Cereal Crops ◽

World Population ◽

Nutrient Deficiencies ◽

System Architectures ◽

Legume Crop ◽

Food Legumes

Plant breeders and agricultural scientists of the 21st century are challenged to increase the yield potentials of crops to feed the growing world population. Climate change, the resultant stresses and increasing nutrient deficiencies are factors that are to be considered in designing modern plant breeding pipelines. Underutilized food legumes have the potential to address these issues and ensure food security in developing nations of the world. Food legumes in the past have drawn limited research funding and technological attention when compared to cereal crops. Physiological breeding strategies that were proven to be successful in cereals are to be adapted to legume crop improvement to realize their potential. The gap between breeders and physiologists should be narrowed by collaborative approaches to understand complex traits in legumes. This review discusses the potential of physiology based approaches in food legume breeding and how they impact yield gains and abiotic stress tolerance in these crops. The influence of roots and root system architectures in food legumes’ breeding is also discussed. Molecular breeding to map the relevant physiological traits and the potentials of gene editing those traits are detailed. It is imperative to unlock the potentials of these underutilized crops to attain sustainable environmental and nutritional food security.

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Genome resources for climate-resilient cowpea, an essential crop for food security

10.1101/059261 ◽

2016 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

María Muñoz-Amatriaín ◽

Hamid Mirebrahim ◽

Pei Xu ◽

Steve I. Wanamaker ◽

MingCheng Luo ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Food Security ◽

Genetic Map ◽

Physical Map ◽

Primary Source ◽

Artificial Chromosome ◽

West African ◽

Sub Saharan Africa ◽

Breeding Lines ◽

Security Issues ◽

Legume Crop

SUMMARYCowpea (Vigna unguiculata L. Walp.) is a legume crop that is resilient to hot and drought-prone climates, and a primary source of protein in sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the developing world. However, genome resources for cowpea have lagged behind most other major crop plants. Here we describe foundational genome resources and their application to analysis of germplasm currently in use in West African breeding programs. Resources developed from the African cultivar IT97K-499-35 include bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) libraries and a BAC-based physical map, assembled sequences from 4,355 BACs, as well as a whole-genome shotgun (WGS) assembly. These resources and WGS sequences of an additional 36 diverse cowpea accessions supported the development of a genotyping assay for over 50,000 SNPs, which was then applied to five biparental RIL populations to produce a consensus genetic map containing 37,372 SNPs. This genetic map enabled the anchoring of 100 Mb of WGS and 420 Mb of BAC sequences, an exploration of genetic diversity along each linkage group, and clarification of macrosynteny between cowpea and common bean. The genomes of West African breeding lines and landraces have regions of marked depletion of diversity, some of which coincide with QTL that may be the result of artificial selection or environmental adaptation. The new publicly available resources and knowledge help to define goals and accelerate the breeding of improved varieties to address food security issues related to limited-input small-holder farming and climate stress.

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Food Security Surveillance in the Palestinian Territories

Prehospital and Disaster Medicine ◽

10.1017/s1049023x00009389 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 17 (S2) ◽

pp. S20-S21

Author(s):

Gregg Greenough ◽

Ziad Abdeen ◽

Bdour Dandies ◽

Radwan Qasrawi

Keyword(s):

Food Security ◽

Palestinian Territories ◽

Security Surveillance

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Averting robo-bees: why free-flying robotic bees are a bad idea

Emerging Topics in Life Sciences ◽

10.1042/etls20190063 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 3 (6) ◽

pp. 723-729

Author(s):

Roslyn Gleadow ◽

Jim Hanan ◽

Alan Dorin

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Computer Simulation ◽

Food Security ◽

European Countries ◽

Plant Interactions ◽

Plant Insect Interactions ◽

Native Habitat ◽

Insect Pollinators ◽

Insect Interactions

Food security and the sustainability of native ecosystems depends on plant-insect interactions in countless ways. Recently reported rapid and immense declines in insect numbers due to climate change, the use of pesticides and herbicides, the introduction of agricultural monocultures, and the destruction of insect native habitat, are all potential contributors to this grave situation. Some researchers are working towards a future where natural insect pollinators might be replaced with free-flying robotic bees, an ecologically problematic proposal. We argue instead that creating environments that are friendly to bees and exploring the use of other species for pollination and bio-control, particularly in non-European countries, are more ecologically sound approaches. The computer simulation of insect-plant interactions is a far more measured application of technology that may assist in managing, or averting, ‘Insect Armageddon' from both practical and ethical viewpoints.

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