SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Nutrition
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1509102
Elevated CO2 decreases micronutrient Zn but not Fe in vegetables -Evidence from a meta-analysis
Provisionally accepted
- 1Mälardalen University, Västerås, Sweden
- 2Swedish Species Information Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Uppsala, Sweden
- 3Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Uppsala, Sweden
- 4Ghent University, Ghent, East Flanders, Belgium
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With carbon dioxide (CO2) levels continuing to rise in the coming decades and threatening agro-ecosystems worldwide, it is crucial to understand the impact of elevated CO2 on global food production and security. Elevated CO2 levels have been found to reduce micronutrients such as Zinc (Zn) and Iron (Fe) in staple crops, potentially exacerbating the already existing global micronutrient deficiency issue. However, as vegetables serve as another key source of micronutrients, it remains uncertain to what extent this negative effect on micronutrient levels also applies to them. To address this, we investigated the effects of elevated CO2 on Zn and Fe in vegetables using a meta-analysis. As expected, we found a significant increase (27%, 95% CI: 14-41%) in vegetable biomass production under elevated CO2 levels. Elevated CO2 (i) significantly reduced overall Zn concentration in vegetables by 8.9% (95% CI: 4 -14%), while this effect was pronounced only in fruit vegetables (11%) not in leafy and stem vegetables; (ii) consistently exhibited minimal effects on Fe concentration in vegetables. In the context of climate change with rising CO2 levels, these findings suggest that elevated CO2 could potentially exacerbate Zn deficiencies through vegetable consumption, albeit enhanced vegetable yields. Furthermore, as the global population increasingly adopts vegetarian diets in the future, these results underscore the need for mitigation strategies to address potential future micronutrient deficiencies.
Keywords: elevated CO2, Zn, fe, SE, vegetable, Micronutrient deficiency, Food security
Received: 10 Oct 2024; Accepted: 10 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang, Zhang, Li, Du Laing, Odlare and Skvaril. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Shengmin Zhang, Swedish Species Information Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, SE-750 07, Uppsala, Sweden
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