Abstract
Stress environments, particularly those caused by man, provide a unique opportunity to observe evolution in action and the ways in which tolerance to stress originates. The basic mechanism is that proposed by Darwin, but the evolution is faster and more localised than we might expect. It is also limited by the availability of appropriate variation and by fitness in normal environments. Where stress conditions fluctuate, systems allowing facultative adaptation by phenotypic plasticity appear, but less is known about how they evolve.
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© 1991 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Bradshaw, A.D., McNeilly, T. (1991). Stress tolerance in plants — the evolutionary framework. In: Rozema, J., Verkleij, J.A.C. (eds) Ecological responses to environmental stresses. Tasks for vegetation science, vol 22. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-0599-3_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-0599-3_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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