transgenerational-memory
Transgenerational memory in plants refers to the phenomenon whereby environmental experiences or stresses encountered by one generation are epigenetically encoded and passed down to offspring, influencing their traits and responses without changes to the underlying DNA sequence. This heritable plasticity allows plants to potentially 'prime' future generations for conditions similar to those their ancestors faced, offering a non-genetic mechanism of adaptation. Understanding transgenerational memory is significant for plant science as it reveals how epigenetic inheritance shapes population resilience, stress tolerance, and evolutionary dynamics in ways that classical genetics alone cannot explain.
PubMed · 2026-04-07
Plants that experienced drought can pass stress-related changes to their offspring's root microbiomes, meaning a dry season may shape not just the current crop but the next generation's ability to survive water stress.
Drought exposure in parent plants altered the root and rhizosphere bacterial microbiome composition in the next generation of offspring, even when offspring were grown without drought stress.
The legacy effects of parental drought were detectable in both the root interior (endosphere) and the surrounding soil zone (rhizosphere), indicating the influence extends across multiple microbial compartments.
Common bean, a globally important staple crop, was used as the study organism, making the findings directly relevant to food security under climate change scenarios.
