Plants share survival tactics with seedlings
Scientists have found that plants can pass on survival strategies to their offspring to help them cope in tough environments. The findings were a result of a study on Arabidopsis plants by researchers at Penn State University in Pennsylvania, US. Arabidopsis are small flowering plants related to cabbage and mustard plants.
The team triggered a chemical reaction in the plants that made them more resilient to changes in the world around them. Plants sometimes do this in the wild to deal with changes such as droughts (long periods of time without rain) or heatwaves. The team caused the reaction by switching off one of the plants’ genes, called MSH1. Genes are short sections of DNA in the cells of every living thing that tell the body how to build and run itself.
The plants whose MSH1 was turned off grew differently to the others. They made themselves hardier, as if getting ready for a harsher environment. Most importantly, some of the seeds from these plants grew into seedlings that had their MSH1 genes already turned off, like their parents, so that they too were ready for tougher conditions.
The seedlings that showed the same response as the parent plant were called “memory” plants, and those that didn’t were called “nonmemory” plants. These “memories” would give the new plants a head start in a changing environment. Some of the changes even got passed on through to further generations.
Sally Mackenzie, the study’s lead researcher, says the results suggest that plants can pass on survival strategies to their offspring, and that some of these strategies have been shaped by experience. The team have since carried out the same experiment with tomato and soybean plants, with similar results.