Climate Change Can't Budge Hardy English Plants

Some plants simply can't handle their climate changing, and an increased temperature kills them off. Others, as DISCOVER recently covered, manage to migrate to a cooler climate when nature turns up the heat. But a grass found on a rocky hillside in Northern England has chosen a third option: Stay and tough it out. Researchers from Syracuse and Sheffield universities had been toying with this particular ecosystem for 13 years. Herbs and shrubs abound in the rocky region; more than 50 species of plants per square meter can be found, and researchers decided to put them all to the test. They divided the area into smaller plots, and varied the climate of those plots wildly. One section was given 20 percent more water than its average yearly amount; another area had shelter built over it to simulate drought. The scientists even planted heating cables underneath one plot to simulate a ...