Plants and people: Our shared history and future

Abstract

Societal Impact Statement: Humans and plants have a complex relationship extending far back into our joint evolutionary history. This legacy can be seen today as plants provide nutrition, fiber, pharmaceuticals, and energy for people and animals across the globe. Plant domestication and agriculture allowed human society to develop and our settlements to become more complex. As such, our modern cities and cultures rely in part on the stable and reliable production and distribution of food. This work examines how changes affecting the globe may impact upon the plant–human relationship, and how plant science can approach future change as both a challenge and an opportunity. Summary: Hominids have coevolved with plants for millions of years; the skulls of ancient hominids reflect the nature of the plant species they ate, while more recently we domesticated plants to suit our needs, leading to a dramatic cultural shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural societies. Our deep relationship with, and understanding of, plants has enabled us to harness their nutritional, medicinal, and aesthetic benefits. Here, I describe how science can facilitate the further exploration of plant species, providing the information we need to adapt plants to enable us to meet the demands of the growing population or to identify novel plant-derived compounds with important medical applications. Many of the major global challenges we face will also impact our relationship with plants; we must protect their biodiversity, which holds vital information and solutions that will help us to cope with these problems. Discoveries arising from the research pipeline of basic and applied research will yield new technologies to both utilize and protect our relationship with plants in the future.