Are fast adaptive changes in plants a remedy against the changing climate?
Rikke Bagger Jørgensen, senior scientist
Dept. Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, DTU
These studies from wild and cultivated Brassica and Hordeum
species aim to reveal, if plant populations can undergo fast
microevolution, when they are subjected to strong selection from abiotic
stressors - temperature, CO2, ozone - over a range of progressing plant generations.
Plants are facing an increase in temperature, elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Recent projections assume an increase in average global temperature of up to 5 °C, which would have an impact on plant populations. Where the plastic responses of a population cannot compensate for the stressful changes in the environment, only evolutionary adaptation can prevent wide-ranging declines in fitness and counter the increased risk of extinction. Especially for slowly migrating populations of plants, where migration may fail to cope with the speed of environmental change, adaptation responses will have a major importance. We present the results of a number of ‘laboratory natural selection experiments’ applying five future climate scenarios, where the effects were investigated over four plant generations. In the climate scenarios CO2, temperature and ozone concentrations were changed (as multifactor or single factor changes), and populations were allowed to adapt freely by fertility- and mortality distributions. Biomass and reproductive output were recorded over generations and molecular markers in the unselected F0 generation compared to the selected F4 generation.
Plants are facing an increase in temperature, elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Recent projections assume an increase in average global temperature of up to 5 °C, which would have an impact on plant populations. Where the plastic responses of a population cannot compensate for the stressful changes in the environment, only evolutionary adaptation can prevent wide-ranging declines in fitness and counter the increased risk of extinction. Especially for slowly migrating populations of plants, where migration may fail to cope with the speed of environmental change, adaptation responses will have a major importance. We present the results of a number of ‘laboratory natural selection experiments’ applying five future climate scenarios, where the effects were investigated over four plant generations. In the climate scenarios CO2, temperature and ozone concentrations were changed (as multifactor or single factor changes), and populations were allowed to adapt freely by fertility- and mortality distributions. Biomass and reproductive output were recorded over generations and molecular markers in the unselected F0 generation compared to the selected F4 generation.
The three species studied reacted differently to the multigenerational selection experiment suggesting differences in adaptive potential.
