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| Semi-natural grassland plots at Buxton Climate Change Impacts Lab [Credit: University of Liverpool] |
Analysis of DNA markers in the plants revealed that the climate change treatments had altered the genetic composition of the plant populations. The results also indicated a process of evolutionary change in one of the study species, suggesting that genetic diversity may be able to buffer plants against the harmful effects of climate change, allowing an "evolutionary rescue"
Dr Raj Whitlock, from the University's Institute of Integrative Biology, said:
How to create a drought: automated rain shelters in operation at Buxton Climate
Change Impacts Lab (time lapse) [Credit: University of Liverpool]
"Climate change is expected to present a significant challenge to the persistence of many populations of wild plant species.
"Our understanding of the potential for such responses to climate change is still limited, and there have been very few experimental tests carried out within intact ecosystems.
"We found that experimental climate change treatments can modify the genetic structure of plant populations within 15 years, which is very fast, in evolutionary terms.
"Evolutionary flexibility within the plant populations at Buxton may help to explain why the grassland there has proven resistant to simulated environmental change."
Source: University of Liverpool [August 27, 2015]