Unique Urbana research testbed

Everybody is talking about climate change, but Urbana researchers are figuring out what its effects on agriculture will be and how to keep agriculture productive as growing conditions change.

Two Institute for Genomic Biology researchers wanted to find out how increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide would affect soybeans' natural defenses against leaf-eating insects. What they found was that elevated carbon dioxide makes soybeans more susceptible to Japanese beetles, Western corn rootworms and Asian soybean aphids.

Evan DeLucia, a plant biology professor, and May Berenbaum, entomology professor, did their experiments at the Soybean Free Air Concentration Enrichment (SoyFACE) facility on the campus' south side.

Established in 2001 by Stephen Long, professor of plant biology and crop sciences, SoyFACE is a unique, 40-acre research facility with plots to which precisely regulated amounts of CO₂ and/or ozone can be delivered. Using SoyFACE, the researchers exposed soybean plants to the equivalent of the increased amounts of atmospheric CO₂ projected for the year 2050, while keeping the plants' exposure to the elements and insects in play.

DeLucia said, "What we found was startling."

When the soybeans were exposed to higher levels of CO₂, like that of a global-warmed future, the beetles lived longer, produced more offspring and did more damage.

DeLucia and Berenbaum knew about a key soybean hormone, jasmonic acid, which counterattacks beetles by producing an enzyme that inhibits the marauders' ability to digest the leaves. The increased atmospheric CO₂ shuts down the plants' jasmonic acid natural defense leaving the insects fat, happy and living longer and inflicting more damage on the soybeans.

The results show that global environmental change is complex and multifaceted. There's more work to do to see if the effects of higher atmospheric CO₂ will result in the same kind of reactions in other important food crops. Then, if some global warming is indeed inevitable, the next step becomes how to protect or design food crops that are resistant to changed environmental factors.

The SoyFACE facility is also used by researchers from plant biology, crop sciences, animal sciences, food science and human nutrition, and natural resources and environmental sciences.

View all in the sampling of the articles in the 2008-09 Annual Report.