Interesting short article on plant adaptability during shifting climactic conditions in the arctic.
Many Arctic plant species have readily adjusted to big climate changes, repeatedly recolonizing the rugged islands of the remote Svalbard archipelago off Norway’s coast through 20,000 years of warm and cool spells since the frigid peak of the last ice age, researchers report in today’s issue of the journal Science.
I’m curious though what is new here. No one thinks that plants and species don’t adapt to changed conditions. The proof is all around us; it is called evolution. What worries those with brains under their hats is rate of change: can organisms respond as fast as conditions change? The dinosaurs’ lungs did not adapt fast enough to the particulate matter in the air after the asteroid smash up, and they died, en masse. So, the report, while interesting in the specifics of what plants adapted, which moved, must be saying, or implying something about the rate of adaption, or distance over which adaptation has taken place, to be interesting, to provide “a glimmer of optimism” one observer suggests. Links to the report are not provided in the article.