Early birds and night owls: natural variation of circadian traits in plants.
Feke A, Farré EM
Circadian Rhythms
PubMedThe weeds taking over your garden, the wildflowers creeping into new climate zones, and the crops being bred for shifting seasons all rely on internal timekeeping that scientists are only now realizing is far more flexible — and far more powerful — than anyone thought.
Every plant has an internal clock that tries to keep time with the 24-hour day. Scientists used to think plants with 'off' clocks — ones that run fast or slow by more than an hour or two — would struggle. But it turns out these slightly mismatched clocks are actually common in nature and can give plants an edge when moving into new habitats. By fine-tuning how the clock talks to the rest of the plant, the same timing quirk can lead to completely different behaviors, like flowering earlier or later, helping the plant fit its new home.
Key Findings
Endogenous circadian cycles differing from 24 hours by 2 or more hours are prevalent across the green lineage, overturning the assumption that near-perfect 24-hour clocks are required for fitness.
Rather than being uniformly disadvantageous, off-period clocks can confer adaptive advantages by enabling plants to exploit a wider range of environmental niches and life history strategies.
The same circadian period change can produce different plant responses depending on which photoperiodic output pathways are active, providing a flexible mechanism for fine-tuned local adaptation.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Plants have internal clocks that don't always tick at exactly 24 hours — and that turns out to be a feature, not a bug. This review synthesizes recent evidence showing that clocks running 2+ hours fast or slow are widespread in plants and can help them thrive in new environments.
Abstract Preview
Circadian clocks have long been hypothesized to tightly link cellular and physiological processes to the appropriate time within the 24-hour cycle of the Earth's daily rotation. According to this h...
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