Modelling climate change impacts on mycotoxin contamination

Abstract

Projected climate change effects will influence primary agricultural systems and thus food security, directly via impacts on yields, and indirectly via impacts on its safety, with mycotoxins considered as crucial hazards. Mycotoxins are produced by a wide variety of fungal species, each having their own characteristics and requirements. The geographic distribution of toxigenic fungi reflects their ecological needs, with thermophilic fungi prevalent at lower latitudes and psychrophiles at the higher latitudes. A resulting gradient of mycotoxin contamination has been repeatedly stressed. Changes in climatic conditions will lead to shifts in the fungal population and the mycotoxin patterns. In general, climate change is expected to increase mycotoxin contamination of crops, but due to the complexity of mycoflora associated to each crop and its interaction with the environment, it appears rash to draw conclusions without specific studies. Very recently first quantitative estimations of impacts of climate change on mycotoxin occurrence have been made. Two studies each applied models of different disciplines including climate projection, crop phenology and fungal/mycotoxin prediction to cereals cultivated in Europe. They were followed by a case study on climate change effects on Alternaria moulds and their mycotoxins in tomato. Results showed that DON contamination of wheat grown in Europe was, in general, expected to increase. However, variation was large, and in some years and some regions a decrease in DON contamination was expected. Regarding aflatoxin contamination of maize grown in Europe, an increase was estimated, mainly in the +2 °C scenario. Two main research gaps were identified related to the (limited) number of existing quantitative models taking into account climate change and their validation in limited areas. Efforts are therefore mandatory to be prepared for future changes and challenges on model validation and limited mycotoxin-crop combinations.

Risk Assessment and Prediction of Aflatoxin in Agro-Products

“…Moreover, applying the early warning model can significantly reduce the detoxification cost. Until now, a lot of researches indicated that key environmental factors including temperature, humidity and precipitation significantly influenced fungus growth, infection as well as aflatoxin production [30][31][32]. And some efforts have been devoted to developing models to predict aflatoxin contamination in peanuts and maize with climatic data used as the main or only input, such as the Agricultural Production Systems Simulator (APSIM) and the CSM-CROPGRO-Peanut model [29,33].…”

Mycotoxin Contamination in Japanese Domestic Feed

“…However, it is interesting that the Tohoku region seems to have intermediate DON and FB 1 concentrations between Hokkaido and Kanto. These regional differences might be strongly related to climate 6) , but also to human social activities and/or transportation of crops. However, detailed research is necessary to find the influence of such factors in mycotoxin contamination concentrations.…”

Mycotoxins – climate impact and steps to prevention based on prediction

“…For spring wheat, even more severe impacts were seen. However, variation between runs and between regions was large, and in some grids a decrease in DON levels was expected [30].…”

“…Van der Fels-Klerx et al [30] reviewed three promising quantitative modeling approaches for impacts of climate change on mycotoxins focused on Europe. One study treated deoxynivalenol (DON) concentrations in wheat produced in north west Europe [31,32], while the other study analyzed afl atoxin (AFB 1 ) contamination of corn, wheat and rice in whole Europe [24,33] and the third one was a case study on Alternaria molds and their mycotoxins in tomatoes [34].…”