Eske Willerslev wants to solve the food crisis using ancient Greenlandic trees

Trees that grew in Greenland two million years ago might secure our food supply in the futures, says Eske Willerslev, one of the world’s leading geneticists.

 

By Sara Kirstine Hald

 

 

 

The climate crisis is causing increasingly unstable weather, impacting our food production.

 

“Right now, the problem is that the climate changes are happening so rapidly that nature won’t necessarily be able to keep up and adapt in time. And in terms of food, it’s a huge problem,” says Eske Willerslev, professor at the Globe Institute at the University of Copenhagen and director of the Centre of Excellence in GeoGenetics.

 

“Our food production has declined globally, and if we don’t do something about it, we’ll face starvation within a few decades.”

 

But the globally renowned researcher has an idea. He has discovered new properties in ancient DNA from Greenland, which, according to him, holds “enormous potential” regarding the impending food crisis.

 

 

Greenland used to be 15 degrees warmer

 

Greenland was 15 degrees warmer two million years ago than it is today. However, the country was in the exact same place, so the lighting conditions remain unchanged; it is very dark half the year and very light the other half. And the sun hangs low in the sky.

 

“Here in the Arctic, there’s a very low sun angle. This means that plants need to be better at capturing sunlight because there’s less of it,” says Eske Willerslev.

 

Apparently, the poplar trees that grew around the Kap København Formation in Northeast Greenland two million years ago were good at this. In DNA samples from the trees, Eske Willerslev and his research team have found a very special gene mutation— meaning a gene variation.

 

 

“Our food production has declined globally, and if we don’t do something about it, we’ll face starvation within a few decades.”
– Eske Willerslev

 

 

 

The gene helped ancient trees adapt to the specific conditions in Northeast Greenland, and, as far as Eske Willerslev knows, it’s not found in any plants today.

 

“This mutation is interesting. Could it mean we can get crops to grow in different places—under different lighting conditions—than they do today?” asks Eske Willerslev.

 

Hear Eske Willerslev tell more in this video.

 

 

A genetic roadmap

 

In cooperation with the Carlsberg Laboratory in Copenhagen, Eske Willerslev is trying to make modern plants more resistant using the Greenlandic gene. He believes the food crisis could be alleviated by transferring the extraordinary ability to capture sunlight found in the plants of the past to present-day crops.

 

“Currently, we’re conducting experiments with barley. We have plants with the mutation and plants without that are exposed to different lighting conditions. It’s still early days, so there’s no conclusion yet, but it seems like the gene makes a difference in the growth of the plants,” says Eske Willerslev.

 

 

It’s still early days, so there’s no conclusion yet, but it seems like the gene makes a difference in the growth of the plants,” says Eske Willerslev.
– Eske Willerslev

 

 

 

According to Eske Willerslev, the experiment is about using nature’s own solutions to solve modern problems—the solutions it has evolved to adapt to climate changes over time.

 

“When you extract DNA from the soil, you get a genetic roadmap. You can see how plants and animals have adapted under different climate conditions. The samples from Greenland can tell us something about how nature adapted when it was warmer here – like it is becoming now,” says Eske Willerslev.

 

 

Unstable weather creates new demands

 

According to Eske Willerslev, it’s problematic that we have completely uniform crops in our fields today – so-called ‘monocultures’ – because they’re not very resistant.

 

“Over the past few centuries, we’ve bred crops that yield well at the expense of everything else. And we’ve controlled the rest using nitrogen, pesticides, and a lot of water. It has worked, you could say, because the climate has been stable, but that’s no longer the case,” says Eske Willerslev.

 

 

“When you extract DNA from the soil, you get a genetic roadmap.”
– Eske Willerslev

 

 

 

The unstable weather creates new demands on our crops. And this is where the genes from Greenland come into play.

 

By ‘going back in time’ both in Greenland and other places around the world, the geneticist hopes to find genes that can make our agriculture more resistant to climate change.

 

 

Enormous potential

 

The experiment at the Carlsberg Laboratory is small and still very new. A larger experiment needs to be initiated if you were to conduct a statistical analysis, explains Eske Willerslev. However, he believes it has enormous potential.

 

“The ability of plants to capture sunlight is just the beginning. There are all sorts of other mutations, including those affecting germination speed that we can work with,” says Eske Willerslev.

 

He expects the first experiment with the barley plants at the Carlsberg Laboratory to be completed in about six months. He is currently working on raising funds for further research in the field.