This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: On the windswept coasts of Oregon and California lives an unassuming little plant that can withstand salty blasts that kill its inland counterparts. It's called the yellow monkeyflower.
Now, researchers are beginning to understand how it manages to thrive in conditions that leave other plants burned, brown and withered. "The yellow monkeyflower has evolved multiple adaptations to salt spray," said David Lowry, a biologist at Michigan State University and senior author of the new study, which was published this month in the American Journal of Botany. By studying the diversity of ways wild monkeyflowers adapt to salt spray, the researchers say their work could point to ways to make other plants, including crops, more resilient to salt exposure.
And not just from ocean spray, but from sources ranging from winter road salt to worsening storm surges, said lead author Madison Plunkert, a plant biology Ph.D. student in MSU's Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior program. To the untrained eye, monkeyflowers do not necessarily look like hardy survivors. But across their range in western North America, from the Pacific Coast to as far inland as the Great Plains, they are known to thrive in harsh, inhospitable places.
Take the margins of abandoned copper mines, hot springs or serpentine soils that are toxic to most plants. For monkeyflowers that live along the Pacific Coast, seaside life means contending with a relentless spray of salt blowing in from the ocean. "It's kind of hard to conceptualize unless you've gone out to the coast in California or somewhere else, and the wind is blowing 30 or 40 miles an hour, and you're actually experiencing the salt landing on you," Lowry said.
"A salty film gets all over the windshields of cars," Lowry explained. "If you lick the leaves of these plants, you can even taste it." Anyone who has seen beachfront homes with rust spots and peeling paint can testify to salt's corrosive effects. But as destructive as salt is to wood, metal and paint, it is lethal to plants, causing roots and leaves to dry out and stunting their growth.
Nearly 20 years ago, Lowry noticed that when he sprayed inland and coastal monkeyflowers with salty water in the greenhouse, the inland plants wilted and turned brown, and many died. But plants collected from the coast survived. This apparent ability to shrug off salt spray's normally toxic effects left scientists puzzled.
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