Born with a silver spoon: dandelion parents’ life experiences affect the lives and afterlives of their offspring

Abstract

This article is a Commentary on Puy et al. (2021), 229: 3497–3507.

Maternal effects of climate warming and nitrogen deposition vary with home and introduced ranges

“…In summary, we found that long‐term simulated climate warming and N deposition elicited adaptive maternal effects and that offspring environments strongly influenced its performance, thereby supporting the hypothesis that perennial plants have the capacity to inherit adaptive plasticity (van Moorsel, 2021) but decline the hypothesis that perennial plants lack adaptive maternal effects (Uller et al., 2013; Yin et al., 2019). In this study, we focused exclusively on maternal effects and did not consider paternal effects.…”

“…The majority of previous studies have considered two different states of an environmental variable or two different environments (Donelson et al., 2018). Thus, it is necessary to conduct multiple‐factor studies to better understand the relative importance of different factors or environmental matches in maternal effects (Fenesi et al., 2014; van Moorsel, 2021). Climate warming can alter thermal regimes and N deposition can alter soil N availability, and thus these two global changes are particularly relevant to maternal effects (Donelson et al., 2018; Herman & Sultan, 2011; Lau et al., 2008; van Moorsel, 2021).…”

“…Thus, it is necessary to conduct multiple‐factor studies to better understand the relative importance of different factors or environmental matches in maternal effects (Fenesi et al., 2014; van Moorsel, 2021). Climate warming can alter thermal regimes and N deposition can alter soil N availability, and thus these two global changes are particularly relevant to maternal effects (Donelson et al., 2018; Herman & Sultan, 2011; Lau et al., 2008; van Moorsel, 2021). Relative to the immediate effects of climate warming and N deposition, their maternal effects on offspring phenotypes have been little studied, although such transgenerational plasticity can provide a means for plants to adapt to a changing climate (van Moorsel, 2021).…”

“…Climate warming can alter thermal regimes and N deposition can alter soil N availability, and thus these two global changes are particularly relevant to maternal effects (Donelson et al., 2018; Herman & Sultan, 2011; Lau et al., 2008; van Moorsel, 2021). Relative to the immediate effects of climate warming and N deposition, their maternal effects on offspring phenotypes have been little studied, although such transgenerational plasticity can provide a means for plants to adapt to a changing climate (van Moorsel, 2021). Since the effects of climate change usually vary with ranges (e.g.…”