• Question: can plants adapt to live in other atmospheres

    Asked by anon-352117 to Rosa on 2 Mar 2023.
    • Photo: Rosa Sanchez-Lucas

      Rosa Sanchez-Lucas answered on 2 Mar 2023:

      Atmospheres are related to different gases that allow specific pressures, temperatures and air conditions. Some gases are also toxic for living organism and plants required at least carbon dioxide, water and some nutrients from the soils. Some plants are more tolerant than others in terms of temperature and slightly pressure. But cells are destroyed by high/low pressure…
      Are they able to adapt? Maybe, depending of a lot of factors

Comments

  • Photo: Nikolai

    Nikolai commented on :

    All life on Earth originated in the oceans, including plants. When plants moved to the land, they had to adapt to the new atmosphere: they developed special cells to improve their breathing (stomata), they developed thicker “skin” to reduce water loss and protect from the sun (cuticle). At the time that plants movd to land, the Earth’s atmosphere was very different (low on oxygen!). Plants have shaped the atmosphere as we experience it today.

    And some plants have gone back into the ocean, either fully (aquatic plants) or partially (semi-aquatic plants).

    There is a cool video on YouTube by Prof. Keiko Torii talking about these things (https://youtu.be/LOqrFBbx41I).

    So yes, plants can adapt to other athmospheres. Some have even done it twice here on Earth!

  • Photo: Sam

    Sam commented on :

    great question! No one has yet grown any plants on another planet, but they have grown plants in space. My favorite plant Arabidopsis (thale cress) is used in the lab a lot, and astronauts have grown it on the International Space Station. It’s still in more or less the same atmosphere as we have on earth, but they do grow rather differently because they are in zero gravity, and plants can sense gravity and grow their roots downwards becuase of this. You can read more about these experiments here: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/Putting_Down_Roots_In_Space