Short Wave How did these flowers evolve to survive a megadrought?
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Mar 20, 2026 
Elsa Chang, a science journalist who covers natural-history research, walks through how scarlet monkeyflowers survived a Western megadrought. She highlights decade-long tracking and genetic sequencing. Short, vivid scenes explain rapid evolution and how reduced stomatal opening helped some populations hang on.
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Rapid Evolution Helped Monkeyflowers Survive Megadrought
- Scarlet monkeyflower populations survived a Western megadrought via rapid evolution in just a few years.
- Researchers tracked the same populations for over a decade and used seed collection and genetic sequencing to detect fast genetic changes.
Stomatal Change Conserved Water In Surviving Flowers
- The best-recovering monkeyflower populations evolved stomata that opened less to conserve water.
- Reduced stomatal opening limited water loss, letting plants hunker down through intense drought conditions.
Keep Long Term Studies To See If Adaptation Lasts
- Continue long-term monitoring to understand lasting evolutionary consequences after rapid adaptation.
- Daniel Anstett and team plan decades-long study to see if survivors retain variation to respond to future changes.