Paper Reviewed
Franks, S.J., Kane, N.C., O'Hara, N.B., Tittes, S. and Rest, J.S. 2016. Rapid genome-wide evolution in Brassica rapa populations following drought revealed by sequencing of ancestral and descendant gene pools. Molecular Ecology 25: 3622-3631.

Writing as background for their work, Franks et al. (2016) say "there is increasing evidence that evolution can occur rapidly in response to selection." And they go on to describe how they confirmed this fact by analyzing "genome-wide differences between ancestors and descendants of natural populations of Brassica rapa [field mustard] plants from two locations that rapidly evolved changes in multiple phenotypic traits, including flowering time, following a multiyear late-season drought in California, USA."

These ancestor-descendant comparisons, in the words of the five U.S. scientists, revealed the occurrence of "evolutionary shifts in allele frequencies in many genes," with some of the genes revealing that these evolutionary shifts have "functions related to drought stress and flowering time, consistent with an adaptive response to selection." And in light of these several facts, we can confidently infer that many of Earth's current plant species possess the ability to make rapid genetic changes designed to cope with various climatic changes that might possibly occur in the near future.