A wild mustard plant that grows in the Rocky Mountains “alters its physical appearance and flowering time in response to different environmental conditions, suggesting some species can quickly shape-shift to cope with climate change without having to migrate or evolve,” says Dartmouth College. Researchers from Dartmouth and the University of South Carolina experimented with the mustard plant, which grows at a variety of elevations, by simulating climate change – they reduced the amount of snowpack at an altitude midway through the plant’s range. It responded by flowering seven days early, similar to the effect of two or three decades of climate change, and by taking on similar appearances as the lower-elevation wild mustard.
The adaptation in physical traits is known as phenotypic plasticity. A co-author of the study says phenotypic plasticity could give allow some species to survive in an area undergoing climate change, since some factors, such as length of daylight, will not change. The shape-shifting ability also could give other species enough time to migrate and adapt to new settings.