Abstract
Climate change is a threat to food security. Wild-harvested food plants (WFPs) are important for the diets of millions of people and contribute to food security, especially in rural and low-income communities, but little is known about climate change risk to WFPs. Using species distribution models, we examined climate change risk to 1190 WFP species used by 19 native language groups in southern Africa. We project that 60% of species will experience an increase (40% a decrease) in range extent within southern Africa by 2060–2080 under a low warming scenario (Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 2.6), while range reductions for 66% of species are projected under a high warming scenario (RCP 8.5). Decreases in geographic range are projected for > 70% of WFP species traditionally used by some language groups. Loss of suitable climatic conditions is projected to decrease WFP species richness most in north-eastern southern Africa—with losses of > 200 species—while increases in species richness are projected in the south and east of South Africa. Availability of WFP species for food security during lean times is also projected to change. In south-eastern South Africa, local diversity of WFPs is projected to increase, while maize and sorghum yields decrease. However, this potential WFP nutritional safety net may be lost in central parts of the region, where declines in both crop yield and WFPs are projected. By looking beyond conventional crops to the exceptional diversity of WFPs, this research helps understanding linkages between WFPs, traditional knowledge, food security and climate change adaptation.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aiello-Lammens ME, Boria RA, Radosavljevic A, Vilela B, Anderson RP (2015) spThin: an R package for spatial thinning of species occurrence records for use in ecological niche models. Ecography 38:541–545. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.01132
Akinnifesi FK, Kwesiga FR, Mhango J, Mkonda A, Chilanga T, et al. (2004) Domesticating priority for miombo indigenous fruit trees as a promising livelihood option for small-holder farmers in southern Africa. Acta Hortic 632:15-30. doi: https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2004.632.1
Akinnifesi FK, Kwesiga F, Mhango J, Chilanga T, Mkonda A et al (2006) Towards the development of miombo fruit trees as commercial tree crops in southern Africa. For Trees Livelihoods 16:103–121. https://doi.org/10.1080/14728028.2006.9752548
Akinnifesi FK, Mhango J, Sileshi G, Chilanga T (2008) Early growth and survival of three miombo woodland indigenous fruit tree species under fertilizer, manure and dry-season irrigation in southern Malawi. For Ecol Manag 255:546–557. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2007.09.025
Austin M (2007) Species distribution models and ecological theory: a critical assessment and some possible new approaches. Ecol Model 200:1–19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2006.07.005
Barbara Becker, (1983) The contribution of wild plants to human nutrition in the Ferlo (Northern Senegal). Agroforestry Systems 1 (3):257-267
Bennett EL, Robinson JG (2000) Carrying capacity limits to sustainable hunting in tropical forests. In: Hunting for sustainability in tropical forests. Columbia University Press, New York
Bharucha Z, Pretty J (2010) The roles and values of wild foods in agricultural systems. Philos Trans R Soc B Biol Sci 365:2913–2926. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2010.0123
Bruyere BL, Trimarco J, Lemungesi S (2016) A comparison of traditional plant knowledge between students and herders in northern Kenya. J Ethnobiol Ethnomed 12:48. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13002-016-0121-z
Carleton TA, Hsiang SM (2016) Social and economic impacts of climate. Science 353(6304). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aad9837
Challinor AJ, Watson J, Lobell D, Howden S, Smith D et al (2014) A meta-analysis of crop yield under climate change and adaptation. Nat Clim Chang 4:287–291. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2153
Cowling SA (1999) Plants and temperature—CO2 uncoupling. Science 285:1500–1501. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.285.5433.1500
Cowling SA, Sykes MT (1999) Physiological significance of low atmospheric CO2 for plant-climate interactions. Quat Res 52:237–242. https://doi.org/10.1006/qres.1999.2065
Crisp MD, Arroyo MT, Cook LG, Gandolfo MA, Jordan GJ et al (2009) Phylogenetic biome conservatism on a global scale. Nature 458:754–756. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07764
Cubasch UD, Wuebbles D, Chen MC, Facchini D, Frame N et al (2013) Introduction. In: Stocker TF, Qin D, Plattner G-K, Tignor M, Allen SK, Boschung J, Nauels A, Xia Y, Bex V, Midgley PM (eds) Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Dinerstein E, Olson D, Joshi A, Vynne C, Burgess ND et al (2017) An ecoregion-based approach to protecting half the terrestrial realm. BioScience 67:534–545. https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/bix014
Ellery WN, Scholes RJ, Mentis MT (1991) An initial approach to predicting the sensitivity of the South African grassland biome to climate change. S Afr J Sci 87:499–503. https://doi.org/10.10520/AJA00382353_7196
Engelbrecht FA, McGregor JL, Engelbrecht CJ (2009) Dynamics of the conformal-cubic atmospheric model projected climate-change signal over southern Africa. Int J Climatol 29:1013–1033. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.1742
Faltein Z, Esler KJ, Midgley GF, Ripley BS (2020) Atmospheric CO2 concentrations restrict the growth of Oxalis pes-caprae bulbs used by human inhabitants of the Paleo-Agulhas plain during the Pleistocene glacials. Quat Sci Rev 235:105731. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2019.04.017
FAO (2019) The state of the world’s biodiversity for food and agriculture. Bélanger J, Pilling D (eds). FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture Assessments. http://www.fao.org/3/CA3129EN/CA3129EN.pdf. Accessed 28 June 2019
Fick SE, Hijmans RJ (2017) WorldClim 2: new 1-km spatial resolution climate surfaces for global land areas. Int J Climatol 37:4302–4315. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.5086
Fithian W, Hastie T (2013) Finite-sample equivalence in statistical models for presence-only data. Ann Appl Stat 7:1917–1939. https://doi.org/10.1214/13-AOAS667
Friedman J, Hastie T, Tibshirani R (2010) Regularization paths for generalized linear models via coordinate descent. J Stat Softw 33:1–22
Glew RH, VanderJagt DJ, Lockett C, Grivetti LE, Smith GC et al (1997) Amino-acid, fatty acid and mineral composition of 24 indigenous plants of Burkina Faso. J Food Compos Anal 10:205–217. https://doi.org/10.1006/jfca.1997.0539
Grivetti LE, Ogle BM (2000) Value of traditional foods in meeting macro- and micronutrient needs: the wild plant connection. Nutr Res Rev 13:31–46. https://doi.org/10.1079/095442200108728990
Grubbs FE (1950) Sample criteria for testing outlying observations. Ann Math Stat 21:27–58. https://doi.org/10.1214/aoms/1177729885
Hastie T, Tibshirani R, Friedman JH (2009) The elements of statistical learning: data mining, inference, and prediction, 2nd edn. Springer-Verlag, New York
Heubes J, Heubach K, Schmidt M, Wittig R, Zizka G et al (2012) Impact of future climate and land use change on non-timber forest product provision in Benin, West Africa: linking niche-based modeling with ecosystem service values. Econ Bot 66:383–397. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-012-9216-1
Hewitson BC, Crane RG (2006) Consensus between GCM climate change projections with empirical downscaling: precipitation downscaling over South Africa. Int J Climatol 26:1315–1337. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.1314
Hickey GM, Pouliot M, Smith-Hall C, Wunder S, Nielsen MR (2016) Quantifying the economic contribution of wild food harvests to rural livelihoods: a global-comparative analysis. Food Policy 62:122–132. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2016.06.001
High C, Shackleton CM (2000) The comparative value of wild and domestic plants in home gardens of a South African rural village. Agrofor Syst 48:141–156. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006247614579
Hijmans RJ, Cameron SE, Parra JL, Jones PG, Jarvis A (2005) Very high resolution interpolated climate surfaces for global land areas. Int J Climatol 25:1965–1978. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.1276
Hoegh-Guldberg O, Jacob D, Taylor M, Bindi M, Brown S, et al. (2018) Impacts of 1.5°C Global Warming on Natural and Human Systems. In: Masson-Delmotte V, Zhai P, Pörtner H-O, Roberts D, Skea J, Shukla PR, Pirani A, Moufouma-Okia W, Péan C, Pidcock R, Connors S, Matthews JBR, Chen Y, Zhou X, Gomis MI, Lonnoy E Maycock T, Tignor M, Waterfield T (eds) Global warming of 1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty. IPCC Secretariat, Geneva
Jarvis A, Upadhyaya H, Gowda CLL, Aggarwal PK, Fujisaka S et al (2008) Climate change and its effect on conservation and use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture and associated biodiversity for food security. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome
Kalaba FK, Chirwa PW, Prozesky H (2009) The contribution of indigenous fruit trees in sustaining rural livelihoods and conservation of natural resources. J Hortic For 1:1–6. https://doi.org/10.5897/JHF.9000107
Ketiem P, Makenzi PM, Maranga EK, Omondi PA (2017) Integration of climate change information into drylands crop production practices for enhanced food security: a case study of Lower Tana Basin in Kenya. Afr J Agric Res 12:17. https://doi.org/10.5897/AJAR2016.11506
Ketlhoilwe MJ, Jeremiah K (2016) The role of traditional ecological knowledge in natural resources management: a case study of village communities in eastern part of Botswana. Eur J Educ Stud 2:29–43. https://doi.org/10.46827/ejes.v0i0.232
Kobori CN, Rodriguez Amaya DB (2008) Uncultivated Brazilian green leaves are richer sources of carotenoids than are commercially produced leafy vegetables. Food Nutr Bull 29:320–328. https://doi.org/10.1177/156482650802900408
Komsta L (2011) outliers: tests for outliers. R package version 0.14
Leakey R (2005) Domestication potential of Marula (Sclerocarya birrea subsp. caffra) in South Africa and Namibia: 3. Multiple trait selection. Agrofor Syst 64:51–59. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10457-005-2480-7
Legwaila GM, Mojeremane W, Madisa ME, Mmolotsi RM, Rampart M (2011) Potential of traditional food plants in rural household food security in Botswana. J Hortic For 3:171–177. https://doi.org/10.5897/JHF.9000090
Lloyd SJ, Kovats RS, Chalabi Z (2011) Climate change, crop yields, and undernutrition: development of a model to quantify the impact of climate scenarios on child undernutrition. Environ Health Perspect 119:1817–1823. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1003311
Lockett CT, Calvert CC, Grivetti LE (2000) Energy and micronutrient composition of dietary and medicinal wild plants consumed during drought. Int J Food Sci Nutr 51:195–208. https://doi.org/10.1080/09637480050029700
Makondo CC, Thomas DS (2018) Climate change adaptation: linking indigenous knowledge with western science for effective adaptation. Environ Sci Policy 88:83–91. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2018.06.014
Mander M, Mander J, Breen C (1996) Promoting the cultivation of indigenous plants for markets: experiences from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Non-wood forest products. Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, Rome
Maroyi A, Cheikhyoussef A (2017) Traditional knowledge of wild edible fruits in southern Africa: comparative use patterns in Namibia and Zimbabwe. Indian J Tradit Knowl 16:385–392
Masubelele ML, Hoffman MT, Bond WJ (2015) Biome stability and long-term vegetation change in the semi-arid, south-eastern interior of South Africa: a synthesis of repeat photo-monitoring studies. S Afr J Bot 101:139–147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sajb.2015.06.001
Merow C, Smith MJ, Silander JA (2013) A practical guide to MaxEnt for modelling species' distributions: what it does, and why inputs and settings matter. Ecography 36:1058–1069. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0587.2013.07872.x
Midgley GF, Thuiller W (2007) Potential vulnerability of Namaqualand plant diversity to anthropogenic climate change. J Arid Environ 70:615–628. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaridenv.2006.11.020
Midgley GF, Hannah L, Millar D, Rutherford MC, Powrie LW (2002) Assessing the vulnerability of species richness to anthropogenic climate change in a biodiversity hotspot. Glob Ecol Biogeogr 11:445–451. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1466-822X.2002.00307.x
Midgley G, Rutherford MC, Bond WJ (2008) The heat is on: impacts of climate change on plant diversity in South Africa. South African National Biodiversity Institute, Cape Town
Mithöfer D, Waibel H (2004) Seasonal vulnerability to poverty and indigenous fruit use in Zimbabwe. Rural poverty reduction through research for development and transformation conference, Deutscher Tropentag, University of Hannover, Berlin
Mogale MMP, Raimondo DC, Van Wyk BE (2019) The ethnobotany of central Sekhukhuneland, South Africa. S Afr J Bot 122:90–119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sajb.2019.01.001
Mojeremane W, Tshwenyane SO (2004) Azanza garckeana: a valuable edible indigenous fruit tree of Botswana. Pak J Nutr 3:264–267
Ohiokpehai O (2003) Promoting the nutritional goodness of traditional food products. Pak J Nutr 2:267–270
Phillips SJ, Anderson RP, Schapire RE (2006) Maximum entropy modeling of species geographic distributions. Ecol Model 190:231–259. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2005.03.026
Porter JR, Xie L, Challinor AJ, Cochrane K, Howden SM et al (2014) Food security and food production systems. In: Field CB, Barros VR, Dokken DJ, Mach KJ, Mastrandrea MD, Bilir TE, Chatterjee M, Ebi KL, Estrada YO, Genova RC, Girma B, Kissel ES, Levy AN, MacCracken S, Mastrandrea PR, White LL (eds) Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Renner IW, Elith J, Baddeley A, Fithian W, Hastie T et al (2015) Point process models for presence-only analysis. Methods Ecol Evol 6:366–379. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.12352
Riahi K, Van Vuuren DP, Kriegler E, Edmonds J, O’neill BC et al (2017) The shared socioeconomic pathways and their energy, land use, and greenhouse gas emissions implications: an overview. Glob Environ Chang 42:153–168. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.05.009
Rim-Rukeh A, Irerhievwie G, Agbozu IE (2013) Traditional beliefs and conservation of natural resources: evidences from selected communities in Delta State, Nigeria. Int J Biodivers Conserv 5:426–432. https://doi.org/10.5897/IJBC2013.0576
Robinson JB, Herbert D (2001) Integrating climate change and sustainable development. Int J Glob Environ Issues 1:130–149. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJGENVI.2001.000974
Robledo C, Clot N, Hammill A, Riché B (2012) The role of forest ecosystems in community-based coping strategies to climate hazards: three examples from rural areas in Africa. Forest Policy Econ 24:20–28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2011.04.006
Rosenzweig C, Elliott J, Deryng D, Ruane AC, Müller C et al (2014) Assessing agricultural risks of climate change in the 21st century in a global gridded crop model intercomparison. Proc Natl Acad Sci 111:3268–3273. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1222463110
Rowland D, Ickowitz A, Powell B, Nasi R, Sunderland T (2017) Forest foods and healthy diets: quantifying the contributions. Environ Conserv 44:102–114. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0376892916000151
Rutherford MC, O’Callaghan M, Powrie LW, Hurford JL, Schulze RE (1996) Predicting survival in new environments through analytical GIS application. Environ Softw 11:113–121. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0266-9838(96)00024-X
Shaheen S, Ahmad M, Haroon N (2017) Edible wild plants: a solution to overcome food insecurity. In Edible wild plants: an alternative approach to food security. Springer, Cambridge
Shumsky SA, Hickey GM, Pelletier B, Johns T (2014) Understanding the contribution of wild edible plants to rural social-ecological resilience in semi-arid Kenya. Ecology and Society 19(4):34. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-06924-190434
Smith GC, Dueker SR, Clifford AJ, Grivetti LE (1996) Carotenoid values of selected plant foods common to Southern Burkina Faso, West Africa. Ecol Food Nutr 35:43–58. https://doi.org/10.1080/03670244.1996.9991474
Springmann M, Mason-D'Croz D, Robinson S, Garnett T, Godfray HCJ et al (2016) Global and regional health effects of future food production under climate change: a modelling study. Lancet 387:1937–1946. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)01156-3
Statistics South Africa (2012) Census 2011 Census in brief. http://www.statssa.gov.za/census/census_2011/census_products/Census_2011_Census_in_brief.pdf. Accessed 18 April 2020
Taylor F, Mateke SM, Butterworth KJ (1996) A holistic approach to the domestication and commercialization of non-timber products. Non-wood forest products. Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, Rome
The Taxonomic Name Resolution Service (TNRS). iPlant Collaborative. Version 4.0. http://tnrs.iplantcollaborative.org. Accessed 20 September 2019
Thuiller W, Midgley GF, Hughes GO, Bomhard B, Drew G et al (2006) Endemic species and ecosystem sensitivity to climate change in Namibia. Glob Chang Biol 12:759–776. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2006.01140.x
Twyman C (2001) Natural resource use and livelihoods in Botswana’s wildlife management areas. Appl Geogr 21:45–68. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0143-6228(00)00016-3
Van Vuuren DP, Edmonds J, Kainuma M, Riahi K, Thomson A et al (2011) The representative concentration pathways: an overview. Clim Chang 109:5. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0148-z
Van Wyk B-E, Gericke N (2018) People’s plants—a guide to useful plants of southern Africa (revised 2). Briza publications, Pretoria
Van Wyk BAE, Van den Berg E, Coates Palgrave M, Jordaan M (2011) Dictionary of names for southern African trees. Briza Academic Books, Pretoria, pp 10–37 (maps)
Vermeulen SJ, Campbell BM, Ingram JS (2012) Climate change and food systems. Annu Rev Environ Resour 37:195–222. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-020411-130608
Vinceti B, Ickowitz A, Powell B, Kehlenbeck K, Termote et al (2013) The contributions of forest foods to sustainable diets. Unasylva 64:54–64
Warton DI, Shepherd LC (2010) Poisson point process models solve the “pseudo-absence problem” for presence-only data in ecology. Ann Appl Stat 4:1383–1402. https://doi.org/10.1214/10-AOAS331
Welcome AK, Van Wyk BE (2019) An inventory and analysis of the food plants of southern Africa. S Afr J Bot 122:136–179. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sajb.2018.11.003
Welcome AK, Van Wyk BE (2020) Spatial patterns, availability and cultural preferences for edible food plants in southern Africa. J Biogeogr 47:584–599. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.13743
Wu SH, Ho CT, Nah SL, Chau CF (2014) Global hunger: a challenge to agricultural, food, and nutritional sciences. Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr 54:151–162. https://doi.org/10.1080/10408398.2011.578764
Wunder S, Börner J, Shively G, Wyman M (2014) Safety nets, gap filling and forests: a global-comparative perspective. World Dev 64:S29–S42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2014.03.005
Zinyengere N, Crespo O, Hachigonta S, Tadross M (2014) Local impacts of climate change and agronomic practices on dry land crops in Southern Africa. Agric Ecosyst Environ 197:1–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2014.07.002
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge B-E van Wyk and AK Welcome for supplying the food plant database in the form of an excel spreadsheet. We also acknowledge the ISIMIP coordination team for their roles in producing, coordinating and making available the ISIMIP model output and the modelling groups that provided the agricultural data. Thank you to M.W. Wessels for the design of the language group distribution map.
Funding
C.W. and C.H.T. received support from the FLAIR Fellowship Programme: a partnership between the African Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society funded by the UK Government’s Global Challenges Research Fund. C.M. received funding from the National Science Foundation grant DBI-1913673 and HDR-1934712.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Additional information
Communicated by Jamie Pittock
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary Information
ESM 1
(PDF 211 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wessels, C., Merow, C. & Trisos, C.H. Climate change risk to southern African wild food plants. Reg Environ Change 21, 29 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-021-01755-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-021-01755-5