Abstract
Climate change impacts crop production, pest and disease pressure, yield stability, and, therefore, food security. In order to understand how climate and atmospheric change factors affect trophic interactions in agriculture, we evaluated the combined effect of elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) and temperature on the interactions among wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), Barley yellow dwarf virus species PAV (BYDV-PAV) and its vector, the bird cherry-oat aphid (Rhopalosiphum padi L.). Plant traits and aphid biological parameters were examined under two climate and atmospheric scenarios, current (ambient CO2 and temperature = 400 ppm and 20 °C), and future predicted (elevated CO2 and temperature = 800 ppm and 22 °C), on non-infected and BYDV-PAV-infected plants. Our results show that combined elevated CO2 and temperature increased plant growth, biomass, and carbon to nitrogen (C:N) ratio, which in turn significantly decreased aphid fecundity and development time. However, virus infection reduced chlorophyll content, biomass, wheat growth and C:N ratio, significantly increased R. padi fecundity and development time. Regardless of virus infection, aphid growth rates remained unchanged under simulated future conditions. Therefore, as R. padi is currently a principal pest in temperate cereal crops worldwide, mainly due to its role as a plant virus vector, it will likely continue to have significant economic importance. Furthermore, an earlier and more distinct virus symptomatology was highlighted under the future predicted scenario, with consequences on virus transmission, disease epidemiology and, thus, wheat yield and quality. These research findings emphasize the complexity of plant–vector–virus interactions expected under future climate and their implications for plant disease and pest incidence in food crops.
Highlights
The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2 ) in the atmosphere has increased by 130 ppm since the Industrial Revolution, largely due to intensified fossil fuel emissions and deforestation
We have found that Elevated CO2 (eCO2) &Elevated temperatures (eT) directly affects wheat growth depending on virus infection, and that eCO2 &eT and virus infection directly influences the rest of wheat plants parameters, similar to when evaluating the effect of eCO2 solely for the same wheat cultivar [14]
Nitrogen is essential for aphid biological functions [24,75] the reduction in R. padi fecundity under eCO2 &eT could be attributed to the changes in the quantity and quality of plant N [41,44]
Summary
The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2 ) in the atmosphere has increased by 130 ppm since the Industrial Revolution, largely due to intensified fossil fuel emissions and deforestation. By the end of the century, equivalent CO2 concentration will reach 720–1000 ppm, which is estimated to increase global surface temperature by 2.2 ◦ C [1], further changing the earth’s climate and affecting biological functions and ecosystem stability [2,3]. Insect herbivores are affected by climate and atmospheric factors, principally temperature [9], and CO2 , ultraviolet radiation, or rainfall, which will influence their development, survival, range, and abundance [3,10]. The incidence and severity of plant viruses are affected by climate change due to mediated effects on plants and their insect vectors [11,12,13,14,15,16,17]
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