AbstractThe impacts of climate change continue to magnify, having devastating effects on populations across the world. Despite the mounting evidence that climate change will continue to intensify and it is due to human activities, humanity is slow to act. To encourage wider action among the public, this chapter discusses the use of food to tell the story of climate change, a growing yet underexplored area of research. The chapter first discusses the current state of food and climate change as an engagement tool. Next, the chapter describes how both food storytelling can overcome some of the challenges within the field of climate change communication. Lastly, the chapter provides examples of how food storytelling techniques can enhance engagement with climate change solutions and shift eating patterns.

Supplementary Figures 1-7, Table 1 from MAGE-A, mMage-b, and MAGE-C Proteins Form Complexes with KAP1 and Suppress p53-Dependent Apoptosis in MAGE-Positive Cell Lines

Farmers, food businesses, and scientists are doing their part. Now let’s turn to what each of us can do. Knowing that climate change poses increasing risks to the foods and beverages we need and love, we must adapt and cut greenhouse gas emissions in every way possible. Those of us living in rich nations such as the United States are the biggest contributors to climate change and are best positioned to tackle it....

This book unpacks the increasingly complex relationships between food and climate change. Whether you're a chef, baker, distiller, restaurateur, or someone who simply enjoys a good pizza or drink, it's time to come to terms with how climate change is affecting our diverse and interwoven food system. The book offers an eye-opening journey through a complete menu of before-dinner drinks and salads; main courses and sides; and coffee and dessert. Along the way, the book examines the escalating changes occurring to the flavors of spices and teas, the yields of wheat, the vitamins in rice, and the price of vanilla. The story is rounded out with a primer on the global food system, the causes and impacts of climate change, and what we can all do. The book is a celebration of food and a call to action—encouraging readers to join with others from the common ground of food to help tackle the greatest challenge of our time.

We live in a small space. Though the earth can seem vast, as can the endless skies above, in fact we exist in a wafer-thin layer of the atmosphere averaging about 7 mi. (11 km) above sea level.1 That’s it. A very thin layer—think apple peel—on a planet that has been not too hot, not too cold, but just right for the past ten thousand years....

This chapter explores key examples of the progress being made and work to be done in solving the challenges facing our menu. It begins with what farmers and ranchers are doing, such as climate-smart farming, conserving the soil, diversifying to reduce risks, and adopting new technologies. Those in the business of food are also changing to remain resilient and stay in business. And finally, scientists are developing hardier crops that tolerate the new stresses wrought by climate change. The chapter then considers what we can do. It is important to become informed, be climate-change literate, speak up about climate change and make it part of the regular dialogue, reduce food waste, switch to a more plant-based diet, and support those who stock the menu — fisher, farmer, and rancher.

When we gather around the table, one dish, the main course, is often central to the meal. We plan our side dishes around it, we pair our beverages with it, and our eyes light up when it finally arrives on the table. Typically, that main attraction includes animal protein, and as incomes continue to rise around the world, so, too, will the demand for meat. Climate change is affecting the animals we eat—and some of the animals we eat are also driving climate change....

This chapter describes where the food we love and need comes from and how it gets to our table. The fresh vegetables we enjoy may come from a local farmers market, the grapes from California, tree nuts from Vietnam, coffee from Brazil, spices from India, and fish from the Bering Sea, to name a few. This global interconnected and interdependent food system that feeds us also provides 40 per cent of global employment and accounts for 10 per cent of consumer spending. But it faces increasing risks from a changing climate. With a global view of the food system as a foundation, the chapter then considers how the many changes in the climate are affecting plants, the basis of life. Plants require the right temperatures, water, soil, air, and sunlight. All of these requirements except sunlight are changing, with subtle to profound implications. The air now has more of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, which means that most plants will grow faster and bigger, but any benefit will be offset by stress from increasing heat and drought. The chapter also looks at how the changing climate affects pests, pollinators, and the food supply chain.

Our main dishes often come with a side dish or two, maybe a potato, some creamy polenta, or another grain, such as quinoa, faro, or barley. This chapter takes a closer look at some of the grains, starches, and vegetables we put on our tables every day, or even at every meal....

This chapter studies how the menu is changing, highlighting key ingredients along the way, such as hops for beer, olive oil for salads, beef as a main course, rice as a side, and vanilla for desserts. Grains for beer are faced with excessive heat; changes in water quality and quantity are affecting spirits; and wine grape production is shifting to cooler climes. Salads are not immune, with avocados and olives facing more stressful higher temperatures and water shortages. The main course follows, with emphasis on beef, poultry, and fish as well as side dishes, and the chapter looks at how they are facing increased risks from a changing climate. The meal is finished with desserts and coffee. Eight million tons of chocolate is enjoyed worldwide, along with milk products like ice cream and cheese. The problems? Hot cows give less milk; intensifying storms in Madagascar disrupt production of vanilla; and our beloved coffee is at more risk because of spreading pests.

Humans have evolved to prefer sweet flavors, and desserts satisfy that natural desire for sweet foods that provide energy and essential nutrients.1 Fancy cakes and confections also stir our imaginations. Dessert is the highlight of the meal, a true celebration of chemistry and food that turns milk, sugar, chocolate, eggs, and other simple ingredients into dishes that delight the eyes as well as the taste buds....

Successful management of insect crop pests requires an understanding of the cues and spatial scales at which they function to affect rates of attack of preferred and non-preferred host plants. A long-standing conceptual framework in insect-plant ecology posits that there is hierarchical structure spanning host location, acceptance and attack that could be exploited for integrated pest management. We investigated how plant- and insect-derived chemical cues affect successive decisions of host choice in aggregating insects, and tested predictions in theCucurbita pepo-Acalymma vittatumsystem.Acalymma vittatumis an aggregating specialist beetle pest that strongly prefers zucchini (C. p. pepo) to summer squash (C. p. ovifera), two independent domesticates ofC. pepo. We hypothesized that subspecies-specific plant traits, especially volatile cues, interact with the male-produced aggregation pheromone to amplify beetle preference forC. p. pepo. Differential beetle attack ofC. peposubspecies in the field is not determined by plant traits that affect host finding or differential aggregation due to pheromones: across two years, beetles had strong density-dependent attraction to both subspecies when male beetles were feeding, and no interactions between plant volatiles and the male-produced pheromone were detected. In the absence of male pheromone emission, beetles were equally unattracted to plants with or without beetle feeding. In contrast, plant traits that mediate insect acceptance appear to underlie differences in preference. At a local scale, beetles did not accept and emigrated fromC. p. oviferacompared toC. p. pepo. Distinct volatile emissions were observed between subspecies, but further work is needed to identify if these volatiles promote emigration. Synthesis and applications. By dissecting pest preference during successive host choice decisions, we isolated a trait with implications for pest management. Beetles on cucurbits can be managed by employing cultivars with differential susceptibility (e.g. trap cropping), and the mechanistic knowledge presented here informs best practices and limitations for on-farm applications. More broadly, pest management in diversified cropping systems can be enhanced through understanding how plant preference gradients affect herbivore movement and behaviour, and plant breeders can target traits to reduce herbivory in such systems.

Although the scientific literature is replete with reports that host and plant volatiles elicit behavioural responses in Trichogramma, most do not compare the relative importance of olfaction, vision, or their interaction; this may be an oversight. We conducted experiments to evaluate whether vision, odour, or their interaction mediated host location by T. ostriniae over small spatial scales. T. ostriniae were given choices between odour cues and visual cues from Ephestia kuehniella, Ostrinia nubilalis, Manduca sexta, and polymer and glass beads, or between visual cues with and without an odour component. There generally was no preference for an odour component, suggesting that random encounter or visual guidance was the likely mechanism of location. For females who successfully located a cue, we found little evidence that odour was the primary mode of detection. However, when M. sexta eggs were the odour source, and compared to eggs washed with solvent to remove volatiles, females showed a predilection toward visual cues with an odour component. However, when Manduca spp. moth scales were applied to glass beads under conditions of high visual contrast, there was no significant preference for odourised visual cues. There is little doubt that Trichogramma rely on olfaction, but many studies include no visual components, no evaluation of the magnitude of olfaction relative to vision nor their interaction. We offer that random movement and vision may determine much of host-finding, especially with Trichogramma augmentatively released into monocultures, but there is likely some interaction with odours at some small spatial scale.

As scientists warn that climate change threatens to disrupt global agricultural systems, there is a need to better understand how the public thinks about the impacts of climate change on food. Building on prior research demonstrating interactive effects of knowledge (e.g., issue understanding and educational attainment) and political party identification in public concern about climate change, we analyze data from 816 respondents drawn from a national probability survey of U.S. adults (fielded September 4–December 10, 2018) to examine whether these factors would similarly predict concern about climate change impacts on food choice, specifically. Indeed, we find that knowledge variables more strongly predict concern among Democrats than Republicans. These general patterns persist in models featuring political ideology (liberalism-conservatism) instead of party identification, and when we control for belief in climate change and other demographic variables (age, gender). Results shed light on the dynamics underlying public concern about projected consequences of anthropogenic climate change that carry widespread implications for food security, public health, and nutrition around the globe.

Argyrins represent a family of cyclic octapeptides exhibiting promising antimicrobial, antitumorigenic and immunosuppressant activities. They derive from a non-ribosomal peptide synthetase pathway, which was identified and characterized in this study from the myxobacterial producer strain Cystobacter sp. SBCb004. Using the native biosynthetic gene cluster (BGC) sequence as template synthetic BGC versions were designed and assembled from gene synthesis fragments. A heterologous expression system was established after chromosomal deletion of a well-expressed lipopeptide pathway from the host strain Myxococcus xanthus DK1622. Different approaches were applied to engineer and improve heterologous argyrin production, which was finally increased to 160 mg/L, around 20-fold higher yields compared to the native producer. Heterologous production platform also led to identification of several novel argyrin derivatives (A2, F3, G3, I, J, K, and L). The optimized production system provides a versatile platform for future supply of argyrins and novel derivatives thereof.

The argyrins are secondary metabolites from myxobacteria with antibiotic activity against Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Studying their structure–activity relationship is hampered by the complexity of the chemical total synthesis. Mutasynthesis is a promising approach where simpler and fully synthetic intermediates of the natural product’s biosynthesis can be biotechnologically incorporated. Here, we report the synthesis of a series of tripeptide thioesters as mutasynthons containing the native sequence with a dehydroalanine (Dha) Michael acceptor attached to a sarcosine (Sar) and derivatives. Chemical synthesis of the native sequence ᴅ-Ala-Dha-Sar thioester required revision of the sequential peptide synthesis into a convergent strategy where the thioester with sarcosine was formed before coupling to the Dha-containing dipeptide.

Climate change may both exacerbate the vulnerabilities and open up new opportunities for farming in the Northeastern USA. Among the opportunities are double-cropping and new crop options that may come with warmer temperatures and a longer frost-free period. However, prolonged periods of spring rains in recent years have delayed planting and offset the potentially beneficial longer frost-free period. Water management will be a serious challenge for Northeast farmers in the future, with projections for increased frequency of heavy rainfall events, as well as projections for more frequent summer water deficits than this historically humid region has experienced in the past. Adaptations to increase resilience to such changes include expanded irrigation capacity, modernized water monitoring and irrigation scheduling, farm drainage systems that collect excess rain into ponds for use as a water source during dry periods, and improved soil water holding capacity and drainage. Among the greatest vulnerabilities over the next several decades for the economically important perennial fruit crop industry of the region is an extended period of spring frost risk associated with warmer winter and early spring temperatures. Improved real-time frost warning systems, careful site selection for new plantings, and use of misting, wind machine, or other frost protection measures will be important adaptation strategies. Increased weed and pest pressure associated with longer growing seasons and warmer winters is another increasingly important challenge. Pro-active development of non-chemical control strategies, improved regional monitoring, and rapid-response plans for targeted control of invasive weeds and pests will be necessary.