Chemical ecology in coupled human and natural systems: people, manioc, multitrophic interactions and global change |
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Authors: | Doyle McKey Timothy R Cavagnaro Julie Cliff Roslyn Gleadow |
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Institution: | 1. Université Montpellier II, Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CNRS UMR 5175), 1919 route de Mende, 34293, Montpellier Cedex 5, France 2. School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Victoria, 3800, Australia 3. The Australian Centre for Biodiversity, Monash University, Victoria, 3800, Australia 4. Department of Community Health, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, CP 257, Maputo, Mozambique
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Abstract: | Chemical ecology provides unique perspectives for managing plant/human interactions to achieve food security. Allelochemicals
function as chemical defences of crop plants, enhancing yields. While ingested allelochemicals can confer health benefits
to humans, at higher concentrations they are often toxic. The delicate balance between their positive and negative effects
in crop plants is influenced by many factors. Some of these—how environment affects optimal levels of defence, how metabolic
interactions with nutrients affect toxicity of ingested allelochemicals—are the province of chemical ecology. These biological
factors, however, interact with social factors, and neither can be studied independently. Chemical ecologists must work together
with social scientists to understand the overall system. Here, we illustrate such an integrative approach, analysing the interactions
between people and the major tropical crop manioc, which contains cyanogenic glucosides. Polymorphism for cyanogen levels
in manioc facilitates analysis of how costs and benefits of crop defences vary among social systems. We first show how people/manioc
interactions diversified in this crop’s Amazonian homeland, then turn to the remarkable cultural adaptations of African farmers
since manioc’s introduction 400 years ago. Finally, we evaluate new coevolutionary challenges in parts of Africa where people
are still unfamiliar with a potentially dangerous crop. Current environmental and social catastrophes have restricted farmers’
options, resulting in acute problems in health of humans and ecosystems. We show that high cyanogen levels confer important
agronomic advantages, but also impose costs and constraints that can only be understood when biology is coupled with analysis
of social, cultural and economic factors. Detoxifying manioc technologically requires know-how, time, water and other resources.
Detoxifying residual dietary cyanogens metabolically depends on being able to grow, or to buy, the nutrients required for
detoxification, primarily sulphur-rich proteins. Solutions that appear adaptive today may not be in the future, as changing
climate, rising atmospheric CO2 levels and decreased access to fertilizers affect productivity of crops and the nutrient and allelochemical composition of
the foods they are used to produce. |
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