Some trees seem able to adjust to climate extremes without altering an important process for their growth, according to new research from Michigan State University.
MSU researchers examined birch trees grown in what’s known as a Biotron — a facility where scientists can adjust temperature, carbon dioxide, and other factors to mimic different climate scenarios. They focused on an important process in plants called photorespiration, which happens when a plant accidentally grabs oxygen molecules instead of the usual carbon dioxide during photosynthesis.
MSU plant scientist Berkley Walker, who heads the lab where the research took place, said they chose to focus on photorespiration for a reason. “Understanding how this very high-flux pathway is responding is an interesting pathway to look at, because it can give us an indication of bigger things with the plant [more] broadly,” Walker said.
What they found is that birch trees seem to be able to maintain photorespiration even under the most extreme climate scenarios they tried — but that’s not because the plant altered its chemical makeup in response. Instead, “what we found is that they don't seem to actually acclimate. They don’t change their capacity [for photorespiration],” Walker explained.
In other words: “Trees have the capacity to deal with our best guesses of what the future demands of photorespiration are. But they have that capacity just because it's hard-wired. They just have enough.”
This is good news for birch trees, which are clustered in boreal regions nearest the Arctic — a particular global hotspot for intense climate change. But Walker cautioned that their findings are specific to photorespiration in birch trees, and there’s a lot we don’t know about how other plants will respond to new climate stressors.
Nonetheless, Walker said the research likely has broader applications. Not only does it indicate that at least some plants come with a built-in buffer to help them withstand climate pressures, it also provides researchers with a kind of template for studying this capacity in other plants — and potentially points to a pathway for helping them adjust to climate change, particularly staple crops in our food system.
“The next step of actually getting into, let's say, crop plants-- that's more involved,” Walker said. “So you want to have a good idea that the strategy you're taking has some legs before going off in that direction.”
The study’s findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports.
