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Narrowing uncertainties in the effects of elevated CO2 on crops

Nature Food volume 1, pages 775–782 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

Plant responses to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations, together with projected variations in temperature and precipitation will determine future agricultural production. Estimates of the impacts of climate change on agriculture provide essential information to design effective adaptation strategies, and develop sustainable food systems. Here, we review the current experimental evidence and crop models on the effects of elevated CO2 concentrations. Recent concerted efforts have narrowed the uncertainties in CO2-induced crop responses so that climate change impact simulations omitting CO2 can now be eliminated. To address remaining knowledge gaps and uncertainties in estimating the effects of elevated CO2 and climate change on crops, future research should expand experiments on more crop species under a wider range of growing conditions, improve the representation of responses to climate extremes in crop models, and simulate additional crop physiological processes related to nutritional quality.

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Fig. 1: Overview of the eCO2 experiments.
Fig. 2: Yield responses to eCO2 as measured in two FACE experiments and simulated by crop models.

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Acknowledgements

We thank EC-JRC for hosting the ‘CO2 Effects on Crops: Current Understanding, Modeling Needs, and Challenges’ workshop held in Ispra, Italy (8–10 October 2018), co-sponsored by AgMIP. S.A. acknowledges support by the CGIAR research programme on wheat agri-food systems (CRP WHEAT) and the CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture. T.A.M.P. acknowledges the Birmingham Institute of Forest Research (paper no. 50). C.R. acknowledges the AgMIP Coordination Unit at Columbia University Earth Institute. F.N.T. acknowledges funding from the FAO Regular Programme. The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of FAO and other organizations.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Andrea Toreti, Delphine Deryng.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Ispra, Italy

    Andrea Toreti, Frank Dentener, Andrej Ceglar, Remi Lecerf, Maurits van den Berg, Matteo Zampieri & Stefano Galmarini

  2. NewClimate Institute, Berlin, Germany

    Delphine Deryng

  3. IRI THESys, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Delphine Deryng

  4. Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Müncheberg, Germany

    Delphine Deryng & Heidi Webber

  5. Statistics Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy

    Francesco N. Tubiello

  6. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research PIK, Member of the Leibniz Association, Potsdam, Germany

    Christoph Müller

  7. US Arid-Land Agricultural Research Center, USDA-ARS, Maricopa, AZ, USA

    Bruce A. Kimball & Gerard W. Wall

  8. Department of Plant Ecology, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Giessen, Germany

    Gerald Moser

  9. University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Kenneth Boote & Senthold Asseng

  10. School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Thomas A. M. Pugh

  11. Birmingham Institute of Forest Research, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Thomas A. M. Pugh

  12. Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Thomas A. M. Pugh

  13. Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO), Mol, Belgium

    Eline Vanuytrecht

  14. KU Leuven, Department of Earth and Environmental Science, Leuven, Belgium

    Eline Vanuytrecht

  15. Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Håkan Pleijel

  16. INRAE, URP3F, Lusignan, France

    Jean-Louis Durand

  17. Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environment LSCE, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Gif-sur-Yvette, France

    Xuhui Wang

  18. Sino-French Institute of Earth System Sciences, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Xuhui Wang

  19. Council for Agricultural Research and Agricultural Economics, Research Centre for Genomics and Bioinformatics, CREA-GB, Fiorenzuola d’Arda, Italy

    Franz Badeck

  20. University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany

    Petra Hoegy

  21. INRAE, Avignon Université, UMR EMMAH, UMT CAPTE, Avignon, France

    Raul Lopez-Lozano

  22. Agriculture Victoria, Horsham, Australia

    Garry J. O’Leary

  23. Thunen Institute of Biodiversity, Braunschweig, Germany

    Remy Manderscheid

  24. NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, NY, USA

    Erik Mencos Contreras & Cynthia Rosenzweig

  25. Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Erik Mencos Contreras & Cynthia Rosenzweig

Authors
  1. Andrea Toreti
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  2. Delphine Deryng
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  3. Francesco N. Tubiello
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  27. Erik Mencos Contreras
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  28. Cynthia Rosenzweig
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Contributions

A.T. and D.D. coordinated this community effort and share first authorship. All of the authors contributed to reviewing and interpreting the available literature, and writing the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Andrea Toreti or Delphine Deryng.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Tables 1 and 3, Figs. 1 and 2, and discussion.

Supplementary Table 2

List and details of all identified eCO2 experiments shown in Fig. 1.

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Toreti, A., Deryng, D., Tubiello, F.N. et al. Narrowing uncertainties in the effects of elevated CO2 on crops. Nat Food 1, 775–782 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-020-00195-4

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