Laboratory Equipment, news on the latest new
products and technologies for the lab, had featured Aaron Davis as the
Scientist of the Week in last week's edition. Aaron Davis, from Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and a team
found that coffee
in the wild may go extinct in 70 years. The team’s paper can be
accessed here.
By Lily Barback
Published
November 29, 2012
Q: What made you interested in studying how climate change will
impact coffee?
A: Various information
sources, including anecdotal information from coffee farmers, report that
coffee production is being negatively influenced by (accelerated) climate
change. However, precise modeling of the influence of climate change on coffee
is limited, and there is no data available for indigenous coffee species.
Arabica coffee is the most important species for coffee production, and yet it
is potentially threatened with extinction in the wild (without factoring-in
climate change).
Indigenous
Arabica coffee has a restricted natural range, found only in the montane
forests of SW and southern Ethiopia, and SE South Sudan (Boma Plateau). The
genetic diversity within indigenous Arabica populations is considerable, and
has a key role to play in the long-term sustainability of Arabica production.
Q: What are the future implications of your research and
findings?
A: Two main types of
analysis were performed: a locality analysis and an area analysis. In the
locality analysis the most favorable outcome is a 65 percent reduction in the
number of pre-existing bioclimatically suitable localities, and at the worst,
an almost 100 percent (99.7 percent) reduction, by 2080. In the area analysis
the most favorable outcome is a 38 percent reduction, and the least favorable a
90 percent reduction, by 2080. Bioclimatic suitability refers to the
combination of climatic variables that are necessary for the health and
survival of a species: loss of optimum bioclimatic suitability places natural
populations under severe environmental stress, leading to a high risk of
extinction.
Q: What was the most surprising thing you found in your
research?
A: The high accuracy and
biological validity of the species distribution models (SDMs), as assessed by
independent expert evaluation. SDMs do not always work, for a variety of
reasons, but for coffee species their performance is remarkably good.
Q: What is the take home message of your research and results?
A: Good data drives good
models. An in-depth knowledge of the study species and the geographical areas
concerned is essential.
Q: What new technologies did you use in your lab during your
research?
A: The locality
analysis, where we investigated the bioclimatic details of each locality in the
present day and through time (future predictions: 2020, 2050, 2080), in
combination with the thresholding of bioclimatic suitability, represents a
novel approach to species distribution modeling.
Q: What is next for you and your research?
A: To increase and
refine the data sources for Arabica coffee, and other coffee species, and
analyze these with established (proven) and new modeling technologies, as these
develop. We would also like to reanalyze the data with more climate change
models, as these become available at the time span and resolution required.