Plants are fighting back against global warming

It seems that plants aren't taking this whole global warming business sitting down: new research shows that at least some plants are finding ways to fight back. This is despite the dire projections of how global warming may wipe out as much as one-fifth of the world’s plant and animal species.

Welcome to the Rise of the Bryophytes.

 

A study published in Plant Biology last month shows that tropical moss—simple plants that grow on tree trunks, rocks, and walls—may have found a way to adapt to climate change and can now grow outside their usual environment.

 

Experiments done by researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Institute in Panama and the University of Oldenburg have shown that certain species of bryophytes—more commonly known as moss, liverworts or hornworts—found in Panama have started adapting to the planet’s rising temperature, growing in areas where the temperatures are 2.6 to 3.6 degrees Celsius higher than their native habitat. These bryophytes normally grow in mountain areas, at altitudes of 1,200 meters and low temperature regions. Their experiments have shown that the bryophytes were able to flourish even after being transplanted to the lowlands, an altitude of 500 meters, where the temperatures are higher.

Bryophytes normally don’t survive in lowland conditions because of their biology. Bryophytes are simple plants with underdeveloped vascular structures. This makes them more susceptible to moisture and carbon loss and limits their ability to do photosynthesis. This is why mosses are often found in cold, humid places and usually spread themselves over a surface rather than grow taller.

 

But plants with more developed vascular structures are better adapted to maintaining photosynthesis, reducing carbon and moisture loss at higher temperatures and less moisture, enabling them to grow, in terms of height and width.

 

Most of the bryophytes transplanted didn’t survive, but a significant number, 9 out of 15 species transplanted, had samples that were able to survive at least 20 months and totally recovered growth. Gerald Zotz, one of the authors of the study, says that these results, “indicates that there is indeed quite a bit of potential for acclimation.”
 

Acclimation and compensation
 

Zotz acknowledges that the plants that survived are at the edge of their temperature tolerance but believes that some acclimation has occurred. He theorized that some compensation mechanisms may be in place to help the moss from completely drying up. Species that are able to acclimatize would have a distinct advantage, and may even benefit from global warming by encountering less competition for resources and elevated carbon dioxide levels.

 

In upcoming experiments, they plan to expose lowland plants to higher temperatures to see if these plants too have mechanisms to adapt to global warming. Zotz says. “If this were true the predicted temperature increases in the future would have serious implications for lowland habitats.” — TJD, GMA News