New analysis suggests that plants can pass on climate adaptation tips to their offspring.   Credit:  Canva

Can a plant remember?

This may sound more like a line from a poem than a scientific enquiry.

But new analysis suggests that plants can pass on climate adaptation tips to their offspring.

From devastating floods to rising temperatures, the climate crisis is changing natural habitats all over the world.

To survive, many plants have been forced to quickly adapt, new research published in the Trends in Plant Science journal indicates.

They then transmit these new traits on to their offspring, says Federico Martinelli, a plant geneticist at the University of Florence.

“One day I thought [about] how the living style and experience of a person can affect his or her gametes [reproductive cells] transmitting molecular marks of their life into their children,” he explains.

“Immediately I thought that even more epigenetic marks must be transmitted in plants, being that plants are sessile [fixed in one place] organisms that are subjected to many more environmental stresses than animals during their life.”

How do plants adapt to climate change and remember these […]

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