Climate change affects cell wall structure and hydrolytic performance of
a tropical forage grass as an energy crop
Abstract
Forage grasses, such as Panicum maximum, are important alternatives of
lignocellulosic biomass for bioethanol production. Thus, this study
investigates whether future climate conditions could influence P.
maximum cell wall structure and hydrolytic performance. A combined
temperature-free air controlled and a free-air carbon dioxide enrichment
(Trop-T-FACE) facility was used to investigated the isolated and
combined effect of elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration (eC) (600
μmol.mol-1) and elevated temperature (eT) by 2˚C more than the ambient
temperature, on cell wall composition, cellulose crystallinity,
accessibility, and hydrolysis yields. The elevated temperature
treatments (eT and eT+eC) exhibited the most pronounced effects. Warming
reduced starch content and crystallinity index (CI) of cellulose while
increased cellulose content. The fluorescent protein-tagged
carbohydrate-binding modules analysis demonstrated that warming led to
improvement in the total cellulose surface exposure/accessibility in eT
and eT+eC by 181% and 132%, respectively. Consequently, glucan
conversion yields were improved by 7.07 and 5.37%, showing that warming
led to lower recalcitrance in P. maximum biomass, which positively
affect its use in biorefineries. Therefore, this work provides important
information from an ecological and economic point of view, and might
assist in the selection of tropical forage grasses efficiently adapted
to climate changes with positive effect on bioenergy production.