Cutting down on one 'super fat' could help plants survive climate change

Climate change doesn't just mean warmer weather. Cold spells can hit unusual lows, too, and the fluctuations between warm and chilly are becoming more extreme.

Even drops of a few degrees can be tough on growing plants. If temperature swings become too large for crops to endure, that means less food for the planet. That's why researchers around the globe are working to build up plant resiliency.

Michigan State University's David Kramer is interested in resilience as it relates to photosynthesis because the process by which plants are powered by the sun is particularly sensitive to temperature swings.

"One of the biggest questions right now is what the best ways are to make plants more tolerant. It's something we need to solve because change is happening so fast," said Kramer, a Hannah Distinguished Professor in the College of Natural Science at MSU. "We think nature has found a lot of solutions; we just need to figure out how they work."

Kramer and his colleagues have now discovered one potential solution in a single fatty acid that has a profound impact on how different cowpea plants tolerate chilling. The researchers published their work online March 16 in the journal Plant, Cell & Environment.

This knowledge could one day help certain crops grow in more places, allowing them to tolerate a wider range of conditions. It also has the potential to help growers wanting to plant crops earlier so they can harvest before the most severe stresses from heat and pests in the summer.

That these possibilities stem from a single fatty acid came as a surprise.

"We never expected that one fatty acid could be a major factor," said the study's first author, Donghee Hoh, a research associate in Kramer's lab.

That's because plants use a myriad of fatty acids to help regulate mission critical processes, notably photosynthesis.


Climate change doesn't just mean warmer weather. Cold spells can hit unusual lows, too, and the fluctuations between warm and chilly are becoming more extreme.