Exploring diversity of oleaginous plants to find potential new sources of oil bodies adapted to climate change

Abstract

Global social welfare faces increasing threats from population growth and climate change, particularly impacting food security and economic development, especially for vulnerable groups. Agronomic practices, like crop selection, are essential in addressing these challenges.

Agroforestry, for example, offers a promising solution by both mitigating soil degradation and contributing to sustainable incomes for the local population. Plants adapted to tropical or extreme climatic conditions can make a major contribution to achieving various sustainable development goals. A key factor in their resilience is the presence of oil bodies (OB), lipid storage organelles. Thanks to their unique structure (spherical droplet with a membrane structured with phospholipid monolayer and proteins), composition (triacylglycerols and minor compounds) and physico-chemical properties (pH stability ranges, thermal behavior) can play their lipid storage and protective role in their environment and have attracted considerable research attention. An overview of the OB composition of major crops compared with that of crops grown in non-temperate climates provides a better understanding of the interactions between climate, OB composition, with a particular focus on chia seeds. A wide variety of fatty acid compositions are found in seed or fruit oil from non-temperate climates. Exploring the OB structure that shelters them could explain their adaptation to different climates and the levers that could be used to benefit from them sustainably, considering the exploitation of these lesser-known source plants in virtuous agricultural/agroforestry schemes. Such interest would contribute to the development of larger-scale supply chains to improve the resilience of developing and advanced countries to climate change.