In a study published in the journal Global Change Biology, researchers showed that genetic diversity in wild plants can be altered through weather conditions brought about by climate change.
Over a period of 15 years, the researchers studied genetic responses in different species of wild plants in the natural grasslands of the Buxton Climate Change Impacts Laboratory in England that occurred due to simulated climate change conditions like warming, watering and drought. Analyzing markers for DNA in the plants showed that exposure to climate change conditions had resulted in altered genetic composition in the plants part of the study.
With genetic alterations, the plants had evolved, showing that genetic diversity may be used as a tool against the damaging effects climate change brings. However, Raj Whitlock, one of the authors of the study, said that climate change is projected to be a big challenge to the kind of persistence many wild plant species have, adding that understanding what the responses hold with regards to climate change is still lacking since few experiments have been carried out on intact ecosystems.
According to him, evolutionary flexibility may explain how the grassland has been able to resist the simulated weather conditions. In evolutionary terms though, influencing genetic changes in wild plants within just 15 years is very fast.
At the Buxton Climate Change Impacts Laboratory, the researchers manipulated climate treatments on an intact species-rich limestone grassland to simulate the usual weather events that result from climate change. Set up by Phil Grime and ran by Jason Fridley, the Buxton Climate Change Impacts Laboratory is supported by the National Science Foundation. With climate treatments being carried since 1993, the grassland boasts of housing the longest-running multi-factor climate manipulations in the world.
Climate change remains a debatable topic as many argue that global warming is not occurring as climate scientists say it is. But given that the first six months of the year were the hottest ever recorded, beating figures in 2010, it's difficult to keep saying that global warming is not real. Each year as well, glaciers are being lost at a volume three times of the ice stored over the European Alps, resulting in the lowest ice levels since records were started over 120 years ago.
