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Plants can adapt to climate change without changing their DNA

Clonal plants can adapt to climate change without changing their DNA. This is made possible by their epigenetic memory, which allows them to adapt more quickly to changing temperatures and to prepare their offspring for climate change. An international team led by scientists/researchers from the Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences has shown for the first time in natural populations that plant evolution could be ensured not only by/through random changes in the DNA code, as current evolutionary theory suggests, but also by/through epigenetic processes by which plants respond to natural conditions. The results of the study were published in the journal New Phytologist.

Article: https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nph.19464