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A new study from the University of Georgia sheds light on how plants respond to stressful environmental conditions caused by climate change, according to the University's Amanda Budd. In a paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, researchers showed that plants grown in drier conditions that simulate the effects of climate change have higher reproductive costs than those grown under current conditions.
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The findings offer clues about how plant populations might respond to climate change and could provide guidance for developing conservation strategies. The term “reproductive costs” refers to the idea that living organisms that invest their energy in current reproduction are less willing to invest in future needs such as survival, growth, and reproduction.
In low-stress environments where resources are abundant, these costs may be negligible or difficult to detect. However, with limited resources and more stressful conditions, these costs often increase, with pronounced negative effects on future survival and reproduction.
Postdoctoral researchers Elena Hamann and Susana Wadgymar, now an assistant professor of biology at Davidson College, and associate professor Jill Anderson of the Odum School of Ecology and genetics department, studied how the drier conditions that accompany climate change alter the reproduction costs of Boechera stricta, a mountain plant from the mustard family.
“The idea was to investigate whether climate change, which generally imposes more stressful conditions, could alter these reproduction costs and how this could affect the evolution of populations across altitude,” said Hamann, lead author of the work.
By: Leonardo Gottems | agrolink
