Love Bananas? Experts Say It Might Go Extinct Soon

Climate change is leading to the spread of a fungal disease called Black Sigatoka, which is damaging the crop of bananas.

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Climate change is forcing a number of changes in our immediate surroundings. From the melting of the polar ice caps to the extinction of several species, one really cannot ignore the impact of climate change.

Now, a new research shows that it could also lead to the extinction of our good-old banana! Climate change is leading to the spread of a fungal disease called Black Sigatoka, which is damaging the crop of bananas, making them unfit for consumption.

The Study

The study has been conducted by the University of Exeter and published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.

Researchers for this study combined and analysed the data on Black Sigatoka and climate change of over 60 years and concluded that conditions like changes to the temperature and moisture are increasing the risk of Black Sigatoka over 44 percent in parts of Latin America and the Caribbean since the 1960s.

A report in iNews quotes Daniel Bebber, one of the researchers, saying:

Black Sigatoka is caused by a fungus whose lifecycle is strongly determined by weather and climate. Climate change has made temperatures better for spore germination and growth and made crop canapies wetter.

Researchers say that the fungus of Black Sigatoka spreads through the ‘aerial spores’ of the banana plant and infects the leaves and causes cells to die when the fungus gets exposed to sunlight.

While the research does not state that all species of banana will be wiped out, they do suggest that some species would be affected and that in turn would drastically reduce the global output of the fruit.

Black Sigatoka was first reported in Honduras in 1972 when it affected a wide range of banana plantations.