DarwinsBulldog
New member
I once did some experiments with UV light indoors.
The theory was that plants at high elevations are exposed to more UV light than plants at sea level and that plants increased resin production as a survival mechanism to protect the plant from harmful radiations.
Well the first time around the plants were not acclimatised and suffered severe burns. I tried again, taking care to get the plants used to the light. This time the plants did not suffer burns.
I tried a range of different varieties, but could not discern any difference in appearance, resin production or high. So much for that theory.
N.
ha that's awesome, as you say though they did show some acclimation the second time around as they didn't suffer burns, which is pretty interesting.
but it would take 100s-1000s of years of natural selection (evolution) to create plants that produced more resin, or whatever other mechanisms they could to protect against the UV. which is probably the case with a lot of high altitude plants. it's called directional selection, there's variation in any population of organisms, some plants would be better able to survive in the high UV levels than others, these would be more likely to pass their genes on and slowly over time the strain/landrace in this area would evolve to deal with the UV much better. it takes a long period of time though, acclimation can only go so far, it's like white people getting tanned, even if we expose ourselves to the highest levels and huge exposure times to UV we'll never be as dark as some african races, though over time we could evolve that level of darkness if UV was selecting for it (the opposite way it did when white races evolved from black ones in africa as they moved to european countries where it was colder, less UV, and we needed more vitamin D so we got paler to absorb more sunlight) black races acclimate in the same way if you took one from african and brought him alaska, he would become lighter in complexion, the same way we do from summer to winter. but he'd never become as white as us, though over 1000s of years it happened to us europeans in the past. anyway that's my 2c.