Mother Plant Passes Light Information to Offsprings

Plants, unlike animals, have little choice in their growth environment. Because most of the seeds fall relatively close to the mother plant, a seedling’s growth environment may frequently be similar to its mother’s. Scientists discovered that mother plants transmit information about their environment to the next generation; so as to increase their offsprings' chances of survival- a natural case of mother knows best.

Julie Etterson of the University of Minnesota and Laura Galloway of Virginia University studied American bellflower, a small forest herb that can grow both in sunny spots and in the shade of forest canopies. When bellflower seedlings are grown in light environments opposite to that of their parents, the plant population grew at a much slower rate. This suggests that mother plants cue the next generation about the light environment they are likely to experience. The signals can change each bellflower generation. As such, the maternal effect represents a flexible evolutionary mechanism for sedentary organisms to cope up with the environment.

Read more at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/318/5853/1134 or http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/318/5853/1134