‘Lost’ coffee plant can resist climate change

2021 ◽  
Vol 250 (3331) ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
Ibrahim Sawal
Keyword(s):  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-82
Author(s):  
Ashabul Anhar ◽  
Heru P. Widayat ◽  
Ali Muhammad Muslih ◽  
Subhan Subhan ◽  
Romano Romano ◽  
...  

The productivity of Arabica coffee in low-altitude areas in Aceh have been declined, caused by an increase in temperatures, and by pests and diseases attack. This study aims to develop adaptation strategies to climate change in Aceh trough understanding how coffee productivity correlates with the management practices across the altitude. To find out a correlation between farming practices variables and coffee productivity, Spearman's rank test was used. To assess whether farming practice explanatory variables affected by the altitudes, a non-parametric with the Kruskal-Wallis Test, with Tukey’s post-hoc test (P0.05) with Chi-square distance were used. The results showed that coffee productivity was positively and significantly correlated to pruning, weeding, application of fertilizer, and application of pest and disease control, but was not to coffee plant density, sustainability certification, land conservation, and age of the coffee plant. Adaptation strategies for farmers in higher altitudes are to maintain the coffee plant density as well as shade density at an optimum level, followed by increasing management practices such as pruning, weeding, application of fertilizer, and pest and diseases control; in lower altitudes, those are to increase shade density both with Leucaena and multipurpose plants such as avocado and citrus, as well as increasing management practices such as land conservation, pruning, weeding, application of fertilizer and pest and diseases control. In middle altitudes, those are to maintain and improve management practices applied


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 723-729
Author(s):  
Roslyn Gleadow ◽  
Jim Hanan ◽  
Alan Dorin

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.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Millington ◽  
Peter M. Cox ◽  
Jonathan R. Moore ◽  
Gabriel Yvon-Durocher

Abstract We are in a period of relatively rapid climate change. This poses challenges for individual species and threatens the ecosystem services that humanity relies upon. Temperature is a key stressor. In a warming climate, individual organisms may be able to shift their thermal optima through phenotypic plasticity. However, such plasticity is unlikely to be sufficient over the coming centuries. Resilience to warming will also depend on how fast the distribution of traits that define a species can adapt through other methods, in particular through redistribution of the abundance of variants within the population and through genetic evolution. In this paper, we use a simple theoretical ‘trait diffusion’ model to explore how the resilience of a given species to climate change depends on the initial trait diversity (biodiversity), the trait diffusion rate (mutation rate), and the lifetime of the organism. We estimate theoretical dangerous rates of continuous global warming that would exceed the ability of a species to adapt through trait diffusion, and therefore lead to a collapse in the overall productivity of the species. As the rate of adaptation through intraspecies competition and genetic evolution decreases with species lifetime, we find critical rates of change that also depend fundamentally on lifetime. Dangerous rates of warming vary from 1°C per lifetime (at low trait diffusion rate) to 8°C per lifetime (at high trait diffusion rate). We conclude that rapid climate change is liable to favour short-lived organisms (e.g. microbes) rather than longer-lived organisms (e.g. trees).


2001 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Moss ◽  
James Oswald ◽  
David Baines

Author(s):  
Brian C. O'Neill ◽  
F. Landis MacKellar ◽  
Wolfgang Lutz
Keyword(s):  

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