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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2025

Genomic Insights Into Local Adaptation Across Heterogeneous Understory Habitats and Climate Change Vulnerability.

Understanding adaptive evolution and survival risks in understory herbs is crucial for the effective conservation of biodiversity. How environmental gradients shape species local adaptation patterns is not well understood, nor is how populations of understory herbs respond to a changing climate. In this study, we conducted population genomic analyses of Adenocaulon himalaicum (Asteraceae) with a pan-East Asian distribution, representing a good model for dominant understory herbs to elucidate adaptation mechanisms in heterogeneous forest ecosystems. Based on 34,398 putatively neutral single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) across 27 populations, we identified three genetic lineages accompanied by high levels of genetic differentiation between populations. Our isolation by environment results (IBE) indicated a significant effect of environmental gradients on genomic variation of A. himalaicum (r = 0.18, p = 0.03). To decompose the relative contributions of climate, geography and population structure in explaining genetic variance, our partial RDA found that the prominent contribution of environmental effects (climatic and soil variables) explained 29% and 36% of the neutral and adaptive genetic variation, respectively. Using two genotype-environment association (GEA) methods, we identified 13 SNPs as candidates for core climate-related adaptation loci, with two of these loci further validated by qRT-PCR experiments. Projections of spatiotemporal genomic vulnerability under different future climate scenarios revealed that populations in the southeastern edge of the Himalayas, near the Sichuan Basin, the southernmost region of Northeast China and the northern Korean Peninsula, as well as northern Japan, were identified as the most vulnerable and should be prioritised for conservation. Therefore, our current study provides the genomic foundations for conservation and management strategies to elucidate how these understory herbs cope with future climate changes.

Climate Change↗

PubMed2026

From population to individual: advocating personalised digital tools for heat-health early warning in a changing climate.

Escalating heat extremes under climate change are imposing substantial health burdens, with 2023 and 2024 consecutively breaking global temperature records. Mounting evidence suggests that heatwaves elevate the risks of hospitalisation and mortality across multiple disease categories, including ischaemic heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and acute kidney injury. Nonetheless, most existing heat-health warning systems remain primarily reliant on population-level predictions, and considering individual differences and disease-specific considerations when defining warning levels would benefit the effectiveness of early prevention for high-risk groups. In this Viewpoint, which is based on the framework of precision public health-delivering the right intervention to the right population at the right time-we propose a framework for personalised digital heat-health early warning tools comprising three dimensions: individualised, risk-stratified prediction models that generate tiered early warnings; personalised health prompts coupled with theory-informed behavioural interventions; and adaptive, equity-oriented alert delivery mechanisms tailored to diverse populations. Such tools have the potential to bridge precision disease prevention and climate adaptation, thereby helping to mitigate heat exposure risks and disease burdens, particularly among high-risk populations. Future implementation research will be essential to address substantial challenges related to feasibility, validation, and equity.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2026

Impact of climate change on pediatric health outcomes.

Climate change has become one of the most critical health issues globally in the twenty-first century with children bearing the disproportionate burden of the burden since they are more vulnerable than adults because of their physiological, behavioral, and developmental capacities. It is a systematic review that rates the evidence of the relationship between climatic exposures such as heat, air-pollution, and extreme weather events and pediatric health outcomes. The number of peer-reviewed studies involved was 23 published in 2000-2025, which represented different geographic areas and study designs and assessed acute and chronic health outcomes. The Newcastle-Ottawa Scale and the ROBINS-I tool were used to evaluate the methodological quality, and the majority of the studies had low to moderate risks of bias. The narrative synthesis shows that there are always links between air pollutants especially PM2.5, NO2 and O3 and respiratory morbidity, prevalence of asthma and hospitalization of children. Amplified temperatures as well as heat waves were associated with increased cases of heat illness, dehydration, and febrile state in infants and young children. There were elevated cases of diarrheal and vector-related infections, especially in low-resource settings, which were linked to extreme weather events especially floods. Although the overall results were similar, significant differences in the regions and methods were found, and low-income countries show little evidence. In addition, exposures as analyzed in most studies were usually considered individually, which may have underestimated the cumulative or compound climate risks.

Humans↗

PubMed2025

Common gardens reveal genomic susceptibility and vulnerability to climate change in Eucalyptus.

Accelerated global climate change and increased species introduction across international scales have raised concerns about the potential for trees to experience maladaptation or lagging adaptation in response to these environmental shifts. However, our knowledge regarding the relationship between the genomic metrics used to predict maladaptation and actual fitness proxies in trees remains limited. Here, we present a population genomic analysis of 295 families from 28 provenances of Eucalyptus pellita, a widely cultivated fast-growing tree species, and conducted two common garden experiments. Genomic susceptibility encompassing individual heterozygosity (H), genomic inbreeding (FROH), and genomic load (inferred from deleterious mutations) exhibited distinct geographic patterns, shedding light on the origin and evolutionary history of E. pellita. The genetic basis of local adaptation was elucidated through genotype-environment associations and genome-wide association studies, including 198 loci associated with climate and 2388 loci regulating different traits. Furthermore, Australian provenances have higher genomic vulnerability under prospective climate alterations than Papua New Guinea and Indonesia provenances. By integrating phenotypic data across two common gardens, the relationship between leaf functional traits and predicted metrics of maladaptation was closer than growth attributes. Notably, pronounced natural selection signals linked to leaf morphogenesis have been identified by comparing two lineages spanning the oceans. This study underscores the immense potential of leveraging genomic susceptibility and genomic vulnerability to decipher the local (mal)adaptation of forest trees.

Eucalyptus↗

PubMed2025

Evolutionary Genomics Unravels the Responses and Adaptation to Climate Change in a Key Alpine Forest Tree Species.

Despite widespread biodiversity loss, our understanding of how species and populations will respond to accelerated climate change remains limited. In this study, we integrate population genomics, experimental evolution, and environmental modeling to elucidate the evolutionary responses to climate change in Populus lasiocarpa, a key alpine forest tree species primarily distributed in the mountainous regions of a global biodiversity hotspot. Over historical timescales, our findings demonstrate that demographic dynamics, divergent selection, and long-term balancing selection have shaped and maintained genetic variation within and between populations. In examining genomic signatures of contemporary climate adaptation, we found that haplotype blocks, potentially caused by inversion polymorphisms that suppress recombination, are linked to enriched combinations of locally adaptive environmental variations. We further assessed the relative contributions of environmentally induced plastic responses, constitutive expression divergence between genetic clusters, and their interactions in driving gene expression variation and divergence. Notably, we observed a strong correlation between sequence divergence and constitutive differential expression among genetic clusters. Finally, by incorporating genetic adaptation, migration, and genetic load into our predictions of population-level climate change risks, we identified western populations-primarily distributed in the Hengduan Mountains, a region known for its environmental heterogeneity and significant biodiversity-as the most vulnerable to climate change. These populations should be prioritized for conservation and management. Overall, our study advances the understanding of the relative roles of long-term natural selection, local environmental adaptation, and immediate plastic expression changes in shaping the responses of natural populations of keystone species to climate change.

Climate Change↗

PubMed2026

Emerging Tree Diseases Driven by Climate Change: A Critical Perspective on Current Challenges and Future Directions.

Climate change is fundamentally reshaping forest disease dynamics through direct effects on pathogen biology and indirect impacts on host physiology. Rising temperatures, altered precipitation patterns, and extreme weather events are driving disease emergence by disrupting ecological relationships between trees and their microbial associates. This review examines how climate change compounds biotic and abiotic risks to forest health, distinguishing between climate-pathogen diseases, where climatic shifts directly favor pathogen activity, and climate-stress diseases, where physiological stress predisposes trees to decline. We explore the continuum from native pathogens gaining new opportunities to exotic pathogens establishing in previously unsuitable environments while considering distinctions among endophytes and latent and nonlatent pathogens. The review emphasizes critical knowledge gaps and highlights emerging research directions, including integration of genomics, remote sensing, and predictive modeling for disease surveillance, adaptive forest management strategies balancing disease mitigation with climate adaptation and new solutions for enhancing forest resilience under accelerating environmental change.

Climate Change↗

PubMed2026

Adaptation to seasonal drought in Arabis alpina is linked to the demographic history and climatic changes since the last glacial maximum.

Understanding how species adapt to new environments is a central goal in evolutionary biology, and a topical question in climate change research. Here, we sequenced the genomes of 426 individuals of the perennial, Arctic-alpine herb Arabis alpina to study demography and adaptation, with a focus on populations in Northern Spain, that experience warm and dry summers. Our inference supports a scenario in which A. alpina colonized Northern Spain in a range expansion event that started near the Alps around 216 thousand years ago (kya). During the last glacial episode (115 to 12 kya), this expansion proceeded westward, and effective population sizes were large across Europe, likely due to a larger suitable habitat for A. alpina. These ancient demographic events gave rise to a highly diverged genetic lineage in Northern Spain. In the present interglacial (between 12 kya and present), populations became increasingly fragmented, and lost genetic diversity across Europe. Furthermore, we detected signatures of selection at genes associated with responses to abiotic stress, including drought stress, and regulation of growth, for instance at SC5D and NAC055, which reflects the climatic changes since the last glacial period. Notably, an ancient polymorphism at the gene FRL1 emerged as a candidate for conferring variation in flowering behavior, and for contributing to adaptation to drought. Our study suggests that the combination of ancestral variation in flowering behavior, and positive selection on new mutations involved in drought responses, underlies the evolution of a new trait syndrome, and adaptation to climate change.

Droughts↗

PubMed2025

Impacts of Climate Change and Related Weather Events on the Health and Wellbeing of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Communities: A Systematic Review.

BACKGROUND: Vulnerable populations such as culturally and linguistically diverse communities (CALD), ethnic minorities and racial groups face a disproportionate burden of climate change-related health impacts due to a combination of socio-cultural and economic factors, geographic vulnerabilities and health disparities. This review synthesised the existing evidence on the health and wellbeing impacts of climate change and related weather events among CALD communities. METHODS: A narrative synthesis approach was utilised to conduct a systematic review. Three electronic databases (PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science) were searched, identifying 25 studies for appraisal and synthesis. Studies published in the English language from January 2010 to March 2024 were included in the review. RESULTS: The reviewed studies, mostly carried out in the USA, employed varied study designs, and focused on diverse CALD groups such as migrants, farmworkers and racial and ethnic minorities. The included studies addressed broader and specific climate change-related events, ranging from heat-related impacts and hurricanes to occupational heat exposure. CALD communities were found to be more vulnerable to climate change-related negative physical and mental health issues, further exacerbated by poor living conditions, limited access to healthcare, and cultural and language barriers. CONCLUSION: Future efforts by governments, healthcare agencies, employers and research institutions should prioritise multilingual risk communication strategies, providing culturally appropriate health education and healthcare access, housing improvements and the investigation of long-term health impacts of climate change and coping mechanisms adopted among CALD populations.

Climate Change↗

PubMed2025

Eco-Evolutionary Genomics Reveal Mountain Range-Specific Adaptation and Intraspecific Variation in Vulnerability to Climate Change of Alpine Endemics.

Alpine plants restricted to rocky habitats exhibit intraspecific diversification due to range fragmentation during Holocene warming, complicating predictions of their climate vulnerability. A lack of understanding of eco-evolutionary mechanisms driving their response to climate change results in ineffective conservation efforts. To uncover the genomic basis of their diversification and explain spatial patterns of their vulnerability, we combine landscape genomics and species distribution modelling. Our model, the Campanula lehmanniana complex, occurs in three distinct central Asian mountain ranges, considered both a biodiversity hotspot and a vascular plant diversity darkspot. Genome-environment association confirmed the adaptive basis of intraspecific diversification, driven by numerous loci of small effect. Genomic and ecological data indicate mountain range-specific climate sensitivity driven by altitude, temperature and precipitation. The cold-dry adapted group from Zeravshan-Hissar Mts will face niche decline but show a higher degree of preadaptation to future climate, while the temperate-humid group from Tian Shan shows an opposite response, with a higher risk of maladaptation despite predicted niche expansion. Maladapted populations at northern margins may require an influx of adaptive variation to cope with predicted changes. However, limited landscape connectivity between island-like habitats, combined with long migration distances required to minimise genotype-environment disruption, highlights the role of human-assisted migration in enabling evolutionary rescue. These results underscore the need to facilitate gene flow from pre- to maladapted populations and the importance of population-specific approaches to inform effective conservation strategies in heterogeneous mountain ecosystems. The results may be relevant to numerous Central Asian mountain species that show similar phylogeographic patterns.

Climate Change↗

PubMed2026

Symbiotic interactions and climate change implications of the octocoral microbiome.

Octocorals are vital components of tropical, temperate, and cold-water benthic marine ecosystems. Their associated microbiomes, comprising microeukaryotes, prokaryotes, and viruses, are increasingly recognised as central to host health, nutrient cycling, and chemical defence. Metagenomics and amplicon sequencing have uncovered taxonomic and functional complexity within these microbial communities, revealing patterns of host specificity and health status, along with seasonality and geographic structuring. However, anthropogenic stressors, particularly those associated with global climate change, exert intense pressure on coral-dominated ecosystems, leading to complex and poorly understood local and regional patterns of octocoral expansion and mortality. Microbial interactions may be a main driver of these contrasting outcomes by mediating the ecological resilience of octocorals to environmental stress. We synthesise the current state of research on the diversity, organisation, and function of the octocoral microbiome, and identify critical knowledge gaps on octocoral holobionts relative to scleractinian corals. Our meta-analysis of 79 publicly available bacterial genomes from octocorals reveals group-specific specialisation in denitrification and nitrate assimilation, along with widespread capacities for essential amino acid, cofactor, and vitamin production, suggesting important contributions to nutrient cycling in the holobiont. While sampling efforts between cultured and uncultured lineages are even, our genomic survey reveals strong sampling bias toward the Atlantic Ocean, temperate gorgonians, and healthy host states, whereas bacterial genomes representing the pathobiome, tropical and/or deep-sea regions, and other octocoral taxa remain underrepresented. Accordingly, we propose future research directions to advance understanding of octocoral microbiome ecology and its role in the resilience of tropical, temperate and cold-water coral reefs.

Endozoicomonadaceae↗

PubMed2025

Ancient climate changes and relaxed selection shape cave colonization in North American cavefishes.

Extreme environments serve as natural laboratories for studying evolutionary processes, with caves offering replicated instances of independent colonizations. The timing, mode and genetic underpinnings underlying cave-obligate organismal evolution remain enigmatic. We integrate phylogenomics, fossils, palaeoclimatic modelling and newly sequenced genomes to elucidate the evolutionary history and adaptive processes of cave colonization in the study group, the North American Amblyopsidae fishes. Amblyopsid fishes present a unique system for investigating cave evolution, encompassing surface, facultative cave-dwelling and cave-obligate (troglomorphic) species. Using 1105 exon markers and total-evidence dating, we reconstructed a robust phylogeny that supports the nested position of eyed, facultative cave-dwelling species within blind cavefishes. We identified three independent cave colonizations, dated to the Early Miocene (18.5 Ma), Late Miocene (10.0 Ma) and Pliocene (3.0 Ma). Evolutionary model testing supported a climate-relict hypothesis, suggesting that global cooling trends since the Early-Middle Eocene may have influenced cave colonization. Comparative genomic analyses of 487 candidate genes revealed both relaxed and intensified selection on troglomorphy-related loci. We found more loci under relaxed selection, supporting neutral mutation as a significant mechanism in cave-obligate evolution. Our findings provide empirical support for climate-driven cave colonization and offer insights into the complex interplay of selective pressures in extreme environments.

Animals↗

PubMed2025

Smarter stomata: emergent technologies unlocking yield potential in a changing climate.

Stomata, the gatekeepers of leaf gas exchange, regulate carbon dioxide uptake and water loss, functions increasingly critical as crops face more frequent, intense heat and drought. Under dry conditions, stomatal conductance (g s) typically decreases, limiting carbon assimilation and yield. Heat stress, in contrast, elicits variable g S responses: sometimes increasing to facilitate transpirational cooling, while at other times decreasing, especially when combined with drought. Heat and drought also induce complex, context-dependent shifts in stomatal anatomy. Smaller, denser stomata improve drought resilience in some cases, while reduced density confers greater tolerance in others. The optimal stomatal ideotype remains unknown, and different or even opposing traits may confer resilience dependent on the environmental scenario. Substantial genotypic variation in g s and stomatal anatomy, high heritability and co-localized quantitative trait loci for stomatal traits and yield highlight their untapped potential as breeding targets for climate-resilient crops. However, stomatal traits remain largely absent from breeding pipelines due to challenges of phenotyping at scale. This is changing rapidly. Advances in deep learning, porometry, digital microscopy, and remote sensing now enable high-throughput measurement of stomatal physiology and anatomy. Next-generation breeding technologies including clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR), multi-omics approaches, and artificial intelligence-driven ideotype selection models could revolutionize breeding, allowing precise engineering of stomatal traits for resilience to environmental stress. The time has come to move beyond characterizing stomatal traits and start actively incorporating them into breeding strategies. By leveraging these technologies, stomatal traits can become high value targets, unlocking their potential to enhance crop performance in a hotter, drier future.

abiotic stress↗

PubMed2026

Bioinformatics in crop research: using genomic data for crop improvement.

Sustainable crop development aims to maintain or increase yields while reducing environmental impact and managing the challenges imposed by climate change. As the global population grows and arable land becomes scarcer, the integration of molecular breeding with bioinformatics has emerged as an effective strategy for long-term crop improvement. Bioinformatics enables researchers to analyze and interpret the vast quantities of genetic data generated by high-throughput sequencing, making it possible to identify molecular markers, candidate genes, and regulatory networks linked to specific agronomic traits, which breeders then translate into focused, ecologically sustainable breeding programs. This approach has enabled major progress across several fronts: the identification of genes conferring resistance to biotic stressors (pests, pathogens) and abiotic stressors (drought, salinity, heat); the development of nutrient-efficient, low-input crop varieties; the improvement of agronomic performance and nutritional quality through identification of yield- and quality-related genes; and the conservation and deployment of genetic diversity to safeguard long-term breeding sustainability. By combining genomic data with precision breeding techniques, researchers are developing crops that are better adapted to a growing population and a changing climate, positioning the integration of molecular breeding and bioinformatics as a central pillar of future global food security.

bioinformatics↗

PubMed2025

Harnessing Landscape Genomics to Evaluate Genomic Vulnerability and Future Climate Resilience in an East Asia Perennial.

In this era of rapid climate change, understanding the adaptive potential of organisms is imperative for buffering biodiversity loss. Genomic forecasting provides invaluable insights into population vulnerability and adaptive potential under diverse climatic conditions, thereby facilitating management interventions and bolstering shaping species-specific germplasm conservation strategies. We primarily employed landscape genomics approaches, leveraging single-nucleotide polymorphisms obtained through whole-genome resequencing of 201 individuals across 43 Rheum palmatum complex populations, to pinpoint adaptive variation and its significance in the context of future climates, delineate seed zones, and establish guidelines for ex situ germplasm conservation. The species complex exhibited strong signatures of local adaptation and differential genomic vulnerabilities across its distribution range, with eastern lineage populations facing significant maladaptation risks under future climate scenarios. Using diverse datasets of putatively adaptive loci and climate change scenarios, we delineated three distinct seed zones within the species' range, estimated varying sample sizes per zone to capture most adaptive diversity, and predicted shifts in seed zone centroids ranging from 48.3 to 359.3 km from historical distributions to mitigate climate change impacts. Collectively, our findings underscore the importance of integrating genomic and environmental data to forecast the adaptive trajectory of an East Asian perennial under anticipated climate changes, guide seed zone delineation for germplasm conservation and enhance population resilience. These results provide a blueprint for designing targeted conservation strategies and restoration plans in other imperilled species.

Climate Change↗

PubMed2026

Scalable, open-access and multidisciplinary data integration pipeline for climate-sensitive diseases.

Climate-sensitive infectious diseases pose an important challenge for human, animal and environmental health and it has been estimated that over half of known human pathogenic diseases can be aggravated by climate change. While climatic and weather conditions are important drivers of transmission of vector-borne diseases, socio-economic, behavioural, and land-use factors as well as the interactions among them impact transmission dynamics. Analysis of drivers of climate-sensitive diseases require rapid integration of interdisciplinary data to be jointly analysed with epidemiological (including genomic and clinical) data. Current tools for the integration of multiple data sources are often limited to one data type or rely on proprietary data and software. To address this gap, we develop a scalable and open-access pipeline for the integration of multiple spatio-temporal datasets that requires only the declaration of the country and temporal range and resolution of the study. The tool is locally deployable and can easily be integrated into existing climate-disease-modelling applications. We demonstrate the utility of the tool for dengue modelling in Vietnam where epidemiological data are legally required to remain local. We include a pipeline for bias correction of climate data to enhance their quality for downstream modelling tasks. The Dengue Advanced Readiness Tools-Pipeline empowers users by simplifying complex download, correction, and aggregation steps, fostering data-driven discovery of relationships between infectious diseases and their drivers in space and time, and enhancing reproducibility in research. Additional modules and datasets can be added to the existing ones to make the pipeline extendable to use cases other than the ones presented here.

automated workflows↗

PubMed2026

Repeated drought induces a reproducible DNA methylation response associated with gene expression in Quercus lobata.

UNLABELLED: Long-lived trees must continually adjust to environmental change and face sustained climatic shifts over their lifetimes. One increasingly important challenge is the rising frequency of drought caused by climate change. Environmentally responsive DNA methylation is widespread in plants, but whether it contributes to gene expression during environmental stress remains unclear, particularly in long-lived trees. Here, we integrated long read methylomes and transcriptomes from valley oak ( Quercus lobata ) seedlings exposed to repeated drought and well-watered treatments. Repeated drought induced a reproducible DNA methylation response that repeatedly targeted the same genomic regions despite turnover of individual methylated sites. These repeatedly targeted regions were transposable elements (TEs) located near genes. Genes adjacent to CHH-methylated TEs were enriched for core drought-response pathways, including abscisic acid signaling, osmotic adjustment and cell-wall remodeling, and remained transcriptionally activated under drought. However, higher CHH methylation levels were associated with progressively smaller transcriptional responses, suggesting that environmentally responsive DNA methylation influences how strongly drought- response genes are activated rather than simply switching them on or off. At the same time, greater CHH methylation was associated with continued repression of nearby TEs, suggesting that this response may simultaneously regulate gene activity while maintaining genome stability. Together, these findings identify a reproducible genome- regulatory response associated with repeated environmental stress in a long-lived tree. By repeatedly targeting the same genomic regions despite turnover of individual sites, this response provides a framework for how long-lived trees repeatedly adjust gene expression while maintaining genome stability during environmental change. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: Plants cannot escape environmental change, and trees must repeatedly respond to stresses, such as drought, over lifetimes spanning decades to centuries. Yet little is known about the molecular mechanisms that make this remarkable resilience possible. Using a widespread California oak, we show that repeated drought repeatedly induced the same DNA methylation pattern in the same parts of the genome, even though the differentially methylated individual sites changed between drought events. This pattern was linked to how strongly drought-response genes were activated, suggesting that trees repeatedly deploy the same molecular program to respond to environmental stress. Our findings provide a new framework for understanding how long-lived organisms repeatedly adjust to changing climates.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2025

Metagenomic and Transcriptomic Datasets of Plateau Brown Frogs (Rana kukunoris) from the Helan Mountains.

Global climate change has become a primary driving factor behind the biodiversity crisis in amphibians, making it crucial to understand how climate change affects species and their potential responses. The plateau brown frog (Rana kukunoris) is often regarded as an ideal ecological indicator species, yet research on its environmental adaptation mechanisms based on transcriptomic and microbiomic studies remains limited. Therefore, this study investigates the adaptation strategies of the plateau brown frog to environmental changes, providing extensive transcriptomic and the first comprehensive metagenomic dataset from two distinctly different environmental regions (eastern and western slopes of the Helan Mountains). We gathered transcriptomic data from three tissues (blood, liver, and muscle), resulting in 294,962 unigenes and 570,192 transcripts. Metagenomic sequencing identified major bacterial groups, including Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Spirochetes, and Actinobacteria. In summary, the results of this study can be used to further explore the associations among microbiota, host, and environment, which are crucial for comprehending the mechanisms of environmental adaptation in this species and contributing to the conservation of amphibian biodiversity.

Animals↗

PubMed2026

Impacts of climate-driven yield changes on the affordability of healthy diets: a modelling study.

BACKGROUND: Food security is central to global nutrition improvement and public health goals, and healthy diets represent a higher-level aspiration beyond merely avoiding hunger. Climate change poses an increasing threat to food systems by affecting crop yields and food prices. Although climate change-driven risks to hunger have been widely studied, the extent to which climate change undermines the affordability of healthy diets while accounting for socioeconomic responses and regional inequalities remains insufficiently understood. This study aimed to quantify the effects of climate change on the future affordability of healthy diets under alternative socioeconomic and climate scenarios. METHODS: We developed an integrated modelling framework that explicitly couples multimodel crop-yield projections with an integrated assessment model (Global Change Analysis Model [GCAM]). Yield responses from six global gridded crop models driven by four climate models were integrated into GCAM, allowing endogenous socioeconomic adjustments such as land-use shifts, production reallocation, and price responses to emerge under shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs). Diet affordability was then assessed using the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN's Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet framework across three socioeconomic-climate scenarios (SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, and SSP3-6.0). FINDINGS: Under a high-emissions pathway (ie, SSP3-6.0), climate change was projected to render healthy diets unaffordable for a model-mean of 119 million people globally by 2100, even when CO2 fertilisation effects are included, with the upper end of the model ensemble reaching about 1·6 billion people. In contrast, climate-induced affordability losses were found to be negligible under both a low-emissions pathway (ie, SSP1-2.6; -0·3 million) and a medium-emission pathway (SSP2-4.5; +0·2 million). Under a high-emission pathway, model-mean projections indicated that diet costs could increase by up to 12% in the most affected regions by the end of the century. Under medium emissions, cost increases were projected to remain below 4%, whereas under low emissions, affordability changes were projected to be minimum across regions (within approximately 0·5%). Substantial regional disparities emerged, with the largest and most consistent affordability losses concentrated in low-income regions that contributed least to historical greenhouse gas emissions. Under SSP3-6.0, these disparities persisted particularly in regions of Africa and Asia despite projected three-to-five-fold increases in income over the century, with climate-induced disruptions to food systems increasing the number of people unable to afford a healthy diet through mid-century. INTERPRETATION: Climate change is likely to exacerbate global nutritional inequalities by disproportionately increasing the affordability risks of healthy diets in regions that have contributed least to historical greenhouse gas emissions. Under high-warming scenarios, socioeconomic development alone is insufficient to fully offset these risks, highlighting the structural vulnerability of low-income food systems to climate-driven price shocks. These findings suggest that in the absence of targeted interventions, climate change could continue to undermine progress towards equitable and health-oriented nutrition outcomes. FUNDING: Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China; National Natural Science Foundation of China; National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Institute for Space Studies Climate Impacts Group; Future of Life Institute; and Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition.

Journal Article↗