How Climate Change Stresses Plants and Alters their Growth

By Souleïmen Jmii 

Plants that inhabit the Earth have the incredible ability to grow continually for hundreds of years, and always towards the light of the sun, which provides them with the necessary energy to sprout.

At the source of this growth are changes in their environment, such as variations in light, temperature and humidity. But new stimuli from current climate changes are disrupting the normal growth of plants.

As a doctoral candidate in biochemistry at the University of Québec in Montréal, I am interested in the structure of plant proteins, and study the ways plants adapt to environmental stresses (drought, cold, deficiencies) at the molecular level in order to select more resilient variants for agriculture.

The unmatched longevity of Pando

The oldest forest on the planet, called Pando, is 80,000 years old. Located in Utah it contains 40,000 genetically identical (clones) of quaking, or trembling, aspen trees. The colony communicates via a single root network.

Pando is considered to be the oldest living organism in the world. This colony originated 30,000 years before the first Homo sapiens settled in Europe. Pando, therefore, has borne witness to the totality of modern human life: the empires of China and Rome, world wars and also to humanity's greatest feats.

Nonetheless, the colony's poplars have not grown nonstop for 80,000 years. On the one hand, their development is orchestrated by the seasons. On the other hand, they must control their developmental growth according to their needs and physical capacities to face external aggressions. By disrupting external environmental stimuli, the current climate crisis directly affects this normal growth regulation.