Irvine, Calif. -- Countering Charles Darwin's view that
evolution occurs gradually, UC Irvine scientists have discovered
that plants with short life cycles can evolutionally adapt in
just a few years to climate change. This finding suggests that
quick-growing plants such as weeds may cope better with global
warming than slower-growing plants such as Redwood trees -- a
phenomenon that could lead to future changes in the Earth's
plant life. "Some species evolve fast enough to keep up with
environmental change," said Arthur Weis, professor of ecology
and evolutionary biology. "Global warming may increase the pace
of this change so that certain species may have difficulty
keeping up. Plants with longer life cycles will have fewer
generations over which to evolve." The study appears the week of
Jan. 8 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Weis and researchers Steven Franks and Sheina Sim studied field
mustard, a weedy plant found throughout the Northern Hemisphere.
In a greenhouse, they grew must