Effect of Climate Change on Pollination, Fertilization and Seed Development in Agricultural Crops

Abstract

Change in condition of abiotic factors like temperature, atmospheric gas composition (particularly carbon dioxide) and radiation activity leads to pose serious threats to all the living entity of the earth. Particularly change of temperature conditions induces lot of changes in reproductive behaviour of angiosperms that resulted in loss of some useful plant resources. Even though the carbon dioxide addition to the earth favour for increasing biomass production and accumulation in crop plants, that one alters the temperature conditions of the earth. Change of all the above said factors started to influence the existing living entities to undergo some evolutionary changes in order to survive and withstand the adverse conditions. In this chapter, the influence of elevated temperature, increased carbon dioxide concentration and UV-B radiation activity on pollination, fertilization and seed development in some important crops like groundnut, pulses and cereals were discussed based on available literature.