Fast adaptation to a changing world? Studying new scales of transgenerational plasticity in plants.

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Johannes Metz
• Subject Area: Ecology and Biodiversity of Plants and Ecosystems
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 547125579

Transgenerational plasticity (TGP) is a fascinating non-genetic modification of offspring phenotypes that results from the experience of parental plants with their specific environmental conditions. When the parental and the offspring environments are correlated, this modification can potentially improve the offspring’s adaptation to drought and other environmental stressors. Intense current debates are therefore discussing whether TGP provides a fast pathway for increased resistance of species to rapid climate change. However, the empirical evidence has thus far remained equivocal. We explain that this likely resulted from important restrictions in existing studies. Namely, nearly all included only a single species that was sampled from a single location and raised under controlled conditions without competition; i.e. most studies disregarded that species inhabit a range of climatic and environmental conditions and interact with other plants in diverse communities. Here, we propose research that overcomes these restrictions and tackles two crucial questions: Is the strength of TGP predictable along climatic gradients for traits across the whole plant life cycle? And is TGP improving the performance of entire plant communities with multiple interacting species? We propose two large, corresponding experiments on TGP in response to drought stress, using annual plants from natural habitats along a steep rainfall gradient in Israel. One experiment will focus on the scale of the rainfall gradient and will test for predictable changes in TGP across 15 sites from desert to Mediterranean conditions. The other will focus on the community scale and will be the first experiment investigating multi-species transgenerational communities under contrasting environmental conditions. In combination, these experiments will elucidate comprehensively whether TGP can increase plant resistance to increasing drought under climate change.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Israel
• International Co-Applicant: Professor Dr. Itamar Giladi