Global Experiment Tracks Plant Evolution Amid Climate Shift

Researchers plant diverse Arabidopsis populations across 30 sites to study rapid adaptation to new environments

Mar. 27, 2026 at 5:15am

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Biologists have created a network of scientists to plant simultaneous experiments in 30 different climate zones around Western Europe, the Mediterranean, the Middle East and North America, allowing genetically diverse Arabidopsis plants to evolve for five years. The goal is to understand how fast these plants will evolve under different climate stresses and identify the gene variants or genetic mutations that allow adaptation to changing environments.

Why it matters

Understanding the speed of evolution and the genetic shifts that accompany it is key to creating models that will help identify plants and animals at risk as their environments change. This data can help devise strategies to aid species that may not be able to adapt quickly enough to climate change on their own.

The details

The experiment, coordinated by Moisés Expósito-Alonso of UC Berkeley, involved planting 12 separate plots of Arabidopsis at each of the 30 locations, allowing the plants to evolve over three generations. Researchers sequenced the genomes of over 70,000 surviving plants to track genetic changes. They found that in most cases, the plants evolved genetically to adapt to the new environments, with changes in gene frequency indicating natural selection. However, some populations in the most extreme warm climates did not show signs of early evolution and instead went extinct.

  • The experiment ran from the fall of 2017 through spring 2022.
  • The genomic analyses in the paper covered the first three years through spring 2020.

The players

Moisés (Moi) Expósito-Alonso

A UC Berkeley assistant professor of integrative biology who created the network of scientists and coordinated the experiment.

Arabidopsis thaliana

A genetically diverse mix of the common lab plant Arabidopsis thaliana, an annual within the mustard family, that was planted in the experiments.

Xing Wu

A postdoctoral fellow in the Exposito-Alonso lab and first author of the paper.

Tatiana Bellagio

A Ph.D. candidate in the Expósito-Alonso lab and co-first author of the paper.

Genomics of rapid Evolution to Novel Environment (GrENE) network consortium

The network of about 75 scientists who collaborated on the experiment.

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What they’re saying

“All of those species that are under protection, for example in natural parks, will still suffer from changing local climates, and we will need to devise some sort of strategy to understand their chances of novel climate adaptation by themselves, or perhaps even aid them.”

— Moisés Expósito-Alonso, UC Berkeley assistant professor of integrative biology

“In the warmest environments - perhaps most representative of future climates under global warming - populations with predictable evolutionary changes survived, while those with chaotic genetic changes went extinct. This reveals that, while rapid adaptation to climate change is possible, extreme heat limits populations to small sizes, which can push populations past an evolutionary breaking point toward extinction.”

— Moisés Expósito-Alonso, UC Berkeley assistant professor of integrative biology

What’s next

Expósito-Alonso and the team continue to analyze the last generations of plants and are planting seeds collected each year from the plots to continue the evolutionary experiments. He has also begun plot experiments at Berkeley, some involving plants other than Arabidopsis.

The takeaway

This experiment provides valuable quantitative data on the speed and patterns of plant evolution in response to climate change, which can help researchers better understand the risks to species and devise strategies to aid their adaptation or survival.