Abstract
Tall fescue pastures cover extensive acreage in the eastern half of the United States and contribute to important ecosystem services, including the provisioning of forage for grazing livestock. Yet little is known concerning how these pastures will respond to climate change. Tall fescue's ability to persist and provide forage under a warmer and wetter environment, as is predicted for much of this region as a result of climate change, will likely depend on a symbiotic relationship the plant can form with the fungal endophyte, Epichloë coenophiala. While this symbiosis can confer environmental stress tolerance to the plant, the endophyte also produces alkaloids toxic to insects (e.g., lolines) and mammals (ergots; which can cause "fescue toxicosis" in grazing animals). The negative animal health and economic consequences of fescue toxicosis make understanding the response of the tall fescue symbiosis to climate change critical for the region. We experimentally increased temperature (+3°C) and growing season precipitation (+30% of the long-term mean) from 2009-2013 in a mixed species pasture, that included a tall fescue population that was 40% endophyte-infected. Warming reduced the relative abundance of tall fescue within the plant community, and additional precipitation did not ameliorate this effect. Warming did not alter the incidence of endophyte infection within the tall fescue population; however, warming significantly increased concentrations of ergot alkaloids (by 30-40%) in fall-harvested endophyte-infected individuals. Warming alone did not affect loline alkaloid concentrations, but when combined with additional precipitation, levels increased in fall-harvested material. Although future warming may reduce the dominance of tall fescue in eastern U.S. pastures and have limited effect on the incidence of endophyte infection, persisting endophyte-infected tall fescue will have higher concentrations of toxic alkaloids which may exacerbate fescue toxicosis.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-21-2014
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fchem.2014.00088
Funding Information
This work was supported by a grant to Rebecca L. McCulley (US Department of Energy 08-SC-NICCR-1073), a cooperative agreement with the USDA-ARS Forage Animal Production Research Unit (58-6440-7-135), the Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station (KY006045), and the University of Kentucky's College of Agriculture, Food, and the Environment.
Related Content
McCulley, R. L. (2017): Ergot and Loline Alkaloid Concentrations in Endophyte-Infected Tall Fescue Tillers. University of Kentucky Libraries. https://doi.org/10.13023/K2RP48
Repository Citation
McCulley, Rebecca L.; Bush, Lowell P.; Carlisle, Anna E.; Ji, Huihua; and Nelson, Jim A., "Warming Reduces Tall Fescue Abundance but Stimulates Toxic Alkaloid Concentrations in Transition Zone Pastures of the U.S." (2014). Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications. 40.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/pss_facpub/40
Notes/Citation Information
Published in Frontiers in Chemistry, v. 2, article 88, p. 1-14.
© 2014 McCulley, Bush, Carlisle, Ji and Nelson. 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.