Medicinal plants under climate change: Impacts on pharmaceutical properties of plants

Abstract

Climate change is one of the most severe threats to biodiversity as well as to ecosystem functioning. In this context, the influence of climate change also influences the important secondary metabolites of pharmaceutical plants. Elevated levels of CO2, ozone, drought, and cold conditions are major abiotic factors responsible for changing climatic conditions and factors that directly or indirectly influence the growth, production, and synthesis of plant secondary metabolites. The secondary metabolites of medicinal plants are currently used as a safe choice compared to the side effects and multidrug resistance conditions of allopathic treatment. Herbal plants and their products have been broadly used in the treatment of common diseases, like diabetes, cancer, cholera, diarrhea, asthma, pyrexia, since ancient times. Several plants and their secondary metabolites have been recognized to elicit beneficial effects on virulent factors of diseases in vivo and in vitro. Plants are extremely sensitive to climatic changes and do not acclimatize randomly. Some climatic factors enhance secondary metabolites, whereas other abiotic factors decrease the growth of plants to a certain extent. In the current chapter the effects of changing climatic conditions on medicinally important secondary metabolites of plants are summarized. © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.