October 1, 2014

1 min read

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Coffee Crisis Spurs Hunt for Helpful Genes [Slide Show]

With cultivated coffee in decline, researchers are turning to wild plants for help

By Kate Wong

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Coffee crops around the world are under serious threat from rising temperatures, shifts in rainfall, insects and disease. In the October Scientific American writer Hillary Rosner reports on the coffee crisis and what scientists are doing about it. The central challenge is that cultivated coffee is highly homogeneous, making it particularly vulnerable to environmental change. Researchers are thus studying the vast genetic diversity in wild coffee plants, searching for helpful genes that could be introduced into cultivated crops via cross-breeding. Scientists have described around 125 coffee species and no doubt more await discovery.

Kate Wong is an award-winning science writer and senior editor for features at Scientific American, where she has focused on evolution, ecology, anthropology, archaeology, paleontology and animal behavior. She is fascinated by human origins, which she has covered for nearly 30 years. Recently she has become obsessed with birds. Her reporting has taken her to caves in France and Croatia that Neandertals once called home to the shores of Kenya’s Lake Turkana in search of the oldest stone tools in the world, as well as to Madagascar on an expedition to unearth ancient mammals and dinosaurs, the icy waters of Antarctica, where humpback whales feast on krill, and a “Big Day” race around the state of Connecticut to find as many bird species as possible in 24 hours. Wong is co-author, with Donald Johanson, of Lucy’s Legacy: The Quest for Human Origins. She holds a bachelor of science degree in biological anthropology and zoology from the University of Michigan. Follow her on Bluesky @katewong.bsky.social

More by Kate Wong
Scientific American Magazine Vol 311 Issue 4This article was published with the title “Coffee Crisis Spurs Hunt for Helpful Genes [Slide Show]” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 311 No. 4 ()
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican102014-2FXaZ7kpHud90Vol6b8a1Z
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