GAINESVILLE, Fla., Dec. 23 (UPI) -- Human-induced climate change may pose a bigger threat than first believed to plants and global agriculture, a University of Florida scientist says. <\/p>\n
Evolutionary genetics Professor Pam Soltis, co-author of a study published in the journal Nature, said most flowering plants, trees and agricultural crops may not have the evolutionary traits needed to rapidly respond to human-induced climate change. <\/p>\n
Many of these plants needed millions of years to evolve mechanisms to cope with freezing temperatures as they radiated into nearly every climate during pre-historic times, she said, and likely acquired many of these adaptive traits prior to their movement into colder regions. <\/p>\n
\"Only some plants were able to make the adjustments to survive in cold climates,\" Soltis said in a university release Friday. \"In fact, some had traits used for other purposes that they co-opted for cold tolerance. The results have implications for plant response to climate change -- some plant lineages, including many crops, will not have the underlying genetic attributes that will allow for rapid responses to climate change.\" <\/p>\n
Because evolutionary strategies to resist cold would have taken millions of years, researchers said, it could mean many plants will have trouble with accelerating human-caused climate change. <\/p>\n
\"Some of these changes were probably not as simple as we once thought,\" Soltis said. \"Adjusting to big shifts in their environments is probably not easy for plants to do. <\/p>\n
\"With climate change that is human-induced, all habitats will be affected over a short period of time, and plants and other organisms will have to adapt quickly if they are to survive,\" she said. <\/p>\n
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Study: Some plants won't cope with human-induced climate change<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" GAINESVILLE, Fla., Dec. 23 (UPI) -- Human-induced climate change may pose a bigger threat than first believed to plants and global agriculture, a University of Florida scientist says. Continue reading