The genetics of climate change

Adaptation to environmental change is particularly important in plants, which are largely immobile and have limited ways of avoiding stresses such as climate change. In the face of potentially devastating climate change, there is a need to understand the genetics of how plants can adapt.

An EU-funded project called CLIMATE_ADAPTATION (Genetic adaptations to climate in Arabidopsis thaliana) is identifying genetic variations and mutations that allow model plant Arabidopsis to adapt to climate change.

CLIMATE_ADAPTATION is recording genetic variation across the entire genome of many Arabidopsis strains to correlate genetic changes with climate. By comparing climate data to individual Arabidopsis genetic variants, researchers are identifying genetic changes linked to environmental and climatic factors.

They are doing this using a computer model that integrates population genetics, ecological modelling and statistical techniques to search for genetic signatures of local adaptation.

So far, researchers have found that water stress in Arabidopsis is linked to altitude, and pathogen defence is affected by rainfall. Temperature meanwhile correlates with changes in genes controlling photosynthesis, lipid metabolism and stress-protection proteins.

CLIMATE_ADAPTATION now intends to use these results to look at Arabidopsis gene interaction networks. Researchers will then select the best candidate genes for further study in the context of climate change.