Sea campion flowers are visible against a sandy background.
Nationalgeographic.co.id—The speed of environmental change is very challenging for wild organisms. When exposed to new environments, individual plants and animals have the potential to adapt their biology. This is to better cope with the new pressures they are facing. This process is known as phenotypic plasticity.
Phenotypic plasticity is the ability of an organism to change in response to stimuli or inputs from the environment. Synonyms are phenotypic response, flexibility and condition sensitivity.
Plasticity may be important in the early stages of colonization of a new site or when exposed to toxic substances in the environment.
New research published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution berjudul “Genetic assimilation of ancestral plasticity during parallel adaptation to zinc contamination in Silene uniflora,” suggesting that early plasticity may influence the ability of later genetic adaptations to conquer new habitats.
A clump of sea campion flowers.
campion loud (Silene uniflora), this coastal wildflower from England and Ireland has adapted to the zinc-rich, toxic industrial-era mining wastes that killed most other plant species. Zinc-resistant plants have evolved from zinc-sensitive coastal populations separately in different places, several times.
To understand the role of plasticity in rapid adaptation, a team of researchers led by Bangor University conducted experiments on sea campion flowers.
Because zinc tolerance has evolved multiple times, this gives researchers the opportunity to investigate whether ancestral plasticity allows the same genes to be used by different populations exposed to the same environment.
Sea campion flower in its natural habitat on the beach.
By exposing plants that were tolerant and sensitive to tame and zinc-contaminated environments and measuring changes in gene expression in plant roots, the researchers were able to see how the plasticity of coastal ancestors had paved the way for adaptation to take place at breakneck speed.
“Sea champignons usually grow on rocky cliffs and beaches, but mining opens up new niches for them that other plants cannot exploit. Our research has shown that some beneficial plasticity in coastal plants has helped minnows to adapt so quickly,” explained Dr Alex Papadopulos , senior lecturer at Bangor University.
“Remarkably, if a gene responded to the new environment in a favorable way in an ancestral plant, it is likely to be reused across all lineages that independently adapted to the new environment,” added Alex. “Phenotypic plasticity might make it more likely that there will be the same evolutionary outcome if the life band is replayed. If we understand the plastic response that species have to environmental change, we may be better equipped to predict the impacts of climate change on biodiversity.”
