AUTHOR=Nabhan Gary Paul , Colunga-GarcíaMarín Patricia , Zizumbo-Villarreal Daniel 

TITLE=Comparing Wild and Cultivated Food Plant Richness Between the Arid American and the Mesoamerican Centers of Diversity, as Means to Advance Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the Face of Climate Change

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems

VOLUME=Volume 6 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sustainable-food-systems/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2022.840619

DOI=10.3389/fsufs.2022.840619

ISSN=2571-581X

ABSTRACT=Climate change is aggravating agricultural crop failures, and the paucity of wild food harvests for Indigenous desert dwellers in México and the USA. This food production crisis has challenging on-going efforts of Indigenous communities to move toward greater food sovereignty and security, prompting them to reconsider the value of traditional Indigenous food systems in both Mesoamerica and Arid America. While food production strategies in these two biocultural food systems share many features, the plant diversity in the historic Mesomerican food system appears to be more robust. However, a higher percentage of plants in Arid American food system have adapted to water scarcity, heat, and damaging radiation. The phytochemical and physiological adaptations of the food plants to abiotic stresses in arid environments offer a modicum of resilience in the face of aggravated climate uncertainties.  By comparing plant genera comprising the historic Mesoamerican and Arid American food systems, we detected a higher ratio of CAM succulents in the wild and domesticated food plant species in Arid American food system. We conclude that food plant diversity in both traditional food systems can provided much of the resilence needed to assure food sovereignty and security as climate change advances.