Effects of elevated atmospheric CO2 and higher temperature on folate andb-carotene content in common vegetables
Keywords:
â-carotene, elevated CO2, folate, global warming, vegetablesAbstract
Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and temperature have steadily increased since the industrial revolution. While the effects of elevated CO2 and higher temperature on crop production and mineral content have been extensively studied and thus well-documented, how global environmental changes affect indicators of important nutritional values is much less known. In this study, we examined how folate and b-carotene were affected by higher CO2 and temperature in five common vegetables i.e. lettuce, mustard green, radish, spinach and turnip green. Vegetables were grown in environmentally-controlled growth chambers at two levels of CO2 (380 or 760 μmol mol-1) and two levels of day-time temperature (24 or 26oC) for eight weeks. Folate and b-carotene were measured using high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with ultra-violet spectroscopy and mass spectroscopy (HPLC-UV and MS). We found elevated CO2 mostly had no effect on folate content at lower temperature, but generally increased its content at higher temperature. -carotene content was lower in lettuce, mustard green and radish, but higher in spinach at elevated CO2, regardless of growing temperature. Our results demonstrated that elevated CO2 and higher temperature will affect nutritional values of common vegetables in the future, but the direction and magnitude of the effect are species-specific and dependent on other environmental factors.
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