Climate change is a persistent and growing challenge to plant life on our planet. Changes to the environments that plants are accustomed to affects how they grow. 

Plant scientists are left to question how these environmental changes will impact plant life, and whether or not plants can acclimate to the new status quo. 

“Human activities are continuing to release an enormous amount of CO₂and it's warming our planet… Plants are just taken along for the journey,” said Luke Gregory, former graduate student in the Walker lab.

Researchers from the Walker lab at the Michigan State University-Department of Energy Plant Research Laboratory, or PRL, are looking at how paper birch trees are acclimatizing to changing environments through how they manage a vital plant process called photorespiration