Penn Biology launches Plant Adaptability and Resilience Center to research plant climate responses

The Penn Biology Department recently launched the Plant Adaptability and Resilience Center to research methods of enhancing plant performance in the face of climate change. 

Led by DiMaura Professor of Biology Doris Wagner, Plant ARC seeks to enhance the adaptability and resilience of plants to support food security in a changing world. Plant ARC will include a number of labs run by Biology Department staff with varying research focuses, with the overarching goal of testing plant responses to climate change.

Wagner emphasized that climate change is becoming an increasingly urgent phenomenon, threatening land availability in the United States. Plant ARC seeks to implement regenerative agricultural practices that ensure plants are adaptable and resilient to different environmental conditions. The lab will utilize climate chambers known as phytotrons, which simulate and reproduce various global climates as a way of testing plant responses to different conditions. Based on this research, the team hopes to develop solutions that can be implemented in urban environments.

“We’d like to understand the limits of acclimation and acclimatization — how hot is too hot, how wet is too wet, what happens with multiple changes — and the mechanisms underlying successful responses,” Biology Department Chair Kimberly Gallagher wrote in a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian. “If we can understand these mechanisms, we should be able to engineer more resilient plants and agricultural systems.”

Though the center is still working on building its physical infrastructure, it is currently setting up prototypes of the climate chambers to test its ideas and “get proof of concept,” Wagner said. 

Wagner described an overwhelming sense of support and collaboration in starting the initiative.

“Everybody in the department and everybody in the planning group is super enthusiastic about it,” Wagner said. “It’s just brought us closer to each other.” 

Plant ARC is collaborating with many of Penn's schools and programs, including the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media, the Netter Center for Community Partnerships, Penn Medicine, the School of Veterinary Medicine, and the Stuart Weitzman School of Design. It plans to engage with community farms and gardens in Philadelphia in the near future.

In addition to Wagner's lab, research at Plant ARC covers a broad range of topics. The Gregory lab researches plant mechanisms at the RNA level, Wood Lab examines plant-microbe interactions, and the Helliker Lab investigates plants' physiological responses to climate change. 

Undergraduate students can get involved with research and community work through Plant ARC. Students are also invited to take relevant courses, including one taught by Wagner, which are soon to be announced.