Abstract
Simple SummaryThe most recent intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC 2021) has shown that the human influence on climate change has been unprecedented, predicting a global temperature increase of 1.5 °C in the earlies 2030s. The burning of fossil fuels has increased the emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O), methane (CH4), and carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere, amplifying the greenhouse effect in the last decades. In this scenario, the use of biorefineries, a renewable analog to petroleum refineries, has attracted a lot of attention since they use renewable sources as lignocellulosic feedstocks. However, climate change alters the temperature, rainfall patterns, drought, CO2 levels, and air moisture impacting biomass growth, productivity, chemical composition, and soil microbial community. Here, we discuss strategies to produce fuels and value-added products from biomass in a climate change scenario, potential feedstocks for bioenergy purposes, the chemical composition of lignocellulosic biomass, enzymes involved in biomass deconstruction, and other processes related to biomass production, processing, and conversion. Understanding these integrated factors involved in bioenergy production with plant responses to climate change shows that climate-smart agriculture is the only way to lower the negative impact of climate changes on crop adaptation and its use for bioenergy.The climate changes expected for the next decades will expose plants to increasing occurrences of combined abiotic stresses, including drought, higher temperatures, and elevated CO2 atmospheric concentrations. These abiotic stresses have significant consequences on photosynthesis and other plants’ physiological processes and can lead to tolerance mechanisms that impact metabolism dynamics and limit plant productivity. Furthermore, due to the high carbohydrate content on the cell wall, plants represent a an essential source of lignocellulosic biomass for biofuels production. Thus, it is necessary to estimate their potential as feedstock for renewable energy production in future climate conditions since the synthesis of cell wall components seems to be affected by abiotic stresses. This review provides a brief overview of plant responses and the tolerance mechanisms applied in climate change scenarios that could impact its use as lignocellulosic biomass for bioenergy purposes. Important steps of biofuel production, which might influence the effects of climate change, besides biomass pretreatments and enzymatic biochemical conversions, are also discussed. We believe that this study may improve our understanding of the plant biological adaptations to combined abiotic stress and assist in the decision-making for selecting key agronomic crops that can be efficiently adapted to climate changes and applied in bioenergy production.
Highlights
There is a global concern about how plants and ecosystems will respond and adapt to new environmental conditions due to climate change
The carbon dioxide captured during photosynthesis is used for biomass growth, and it is commonly balanced with the release of carbon dioxide from bioenergy/biofuel combustion [6]
This review provides an overview of the impacts of plant responses to abiotic stress in cell wall properties and biomass digestibility, reporting the key challenges to be faced on the use of lignocellulosic feedstocks for bioenergy purposes in climate change scenarios
Summary
There is a global concern about how plants and ecosystems will respond and adapt to new environmental conditions due to climate change. Studies of interactions between species and environmental factors can contribute to understanding the adaptive responses of plants to future predicted conditions and the possible impacts of climate change on vegetation and biomass production. The plant cell wall is constituted mainly by cellulose, hemicelluloses, and lignin. Cellulolytic, hemicellulolytic, and ligninolytic systems are necessary when thinking about the formation of fermentable sugars and the final production of bioenergy These systems are produced and secreted by microorganisms, mainly filamentous fungi, which have developed cellular secretory mechanisms. This review provides an overview of the impacts of plant responses to abiotic stress in cell wall properties and biomass digestibility, reporting the key challenges to be faced on the use of lignocellulosic feedstocks for bioenergy purposes in climate change scenarios
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