A new project publication on phenotypic plasticity, titled “Great Thermal Plasticity Toward Heterogeneous Range-Edge Environments of Three Hypeircum Species”, has been published in Ecology and Evolution. The article is a collaborative effort, and two of the authors are OBSGESSION partners, Maria Hällfors and Susanna Koivusaari (SYKE).

In the study, the authors have researched how different populations of the same plant species react to changes in temperature. To do so, they have tested three types of Hypericum plants (from the family of Hypericaceae, known as St. John’s wort) in greenhouses, changing the temperature, to test how flexible they are. The ability to change growth or behaviour depending on environmental change in plants is commonly known as thermal plasticity. The research aimed to study how environmental changes can shape phenotypic plasticity (the ability of plant species to change their traits depending on the surrounding environment). 

The paper highlights that same species have different plasticity among populations. Those near range edges and in heterogeneous environments showed more plasticity.

You can read the full article here.