... or, the latent survival genes that ensure reproduction are switched back on through epigenetic signals when there is a lack of pollinators. Plants do evolve, but not on that short of a time scale.
20
Flowers ‘giving up’ on scarce insects and evolving to self-pollinate, say scientists
(www.theguardian.com)
That's a good point. If I am reading this correctly, the only molecular argument that they make is the analysis of allelic richness (Table 1), and most of the measured values are within the error bars of each other. Either I am missing something, mis-understanding the significance, or they are not making a compelling case against epigenetic mechanisms.
But I also don't think it is so unlikely. I think that a plant population could evolve in this way rapidly, especially if the genes are already present in the population and there is a change in the selective pressure for that gene.
this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2023
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