Plant gene expression plasticity and adaptation to climate change

One effect of climate change is that plants are exposed to increasing local variation in weather conditions, including more episodes of heat stress. Should plants evolve to perform better at high temperatures, or should they become more plastic and cope with a broader range of temperatures? This project compares a large panel of duckweed genotypes for genetic differences in thermal plasticity in gene expression. Because duckweeds are the fastest growing plants in the world, we can use experimental evolution approaches to test if more plastic genotypes have a selective advantage when temperature environments become more variable.