Current Events: Can cacti escape global warming?

97F (36C), thats how high air temperatures can get in the summers of the Chihuahuan Desert in Southern Texas, but thats not as bad as the found temperatures which can exceed 158F (70C)! When plants encounter this type of extreme heat they have to find very creative ways to survive in this kind of trecherous and maybe lethal environment. Work by Dr.Gretchen North and her colleagues shed the light in how cactus Ariocarpus fissuratus, which is a desert resident, copes with these high temperatures. A crucial point is that small desert plants such as "living rock" (which is the name for the cacti) can live on the surface of desert soil, one of the hottest habitats on earth. How did this type of cacti earn its name the "living rock"? This is because this cactus blends into it rocky surroundings and is level with surroundings. A hypothesis researchers have is that this cactus could almost "escape" high temperatures by moving slowly below soil surface, which is cooler. North and co-workers determined that the cactus moves deeper in to soil using it roots, to find this they measured changes in plants depth and the anatomy of the root. But does this help play a protective role by modulating temperatures. To figure this out researchers took plants growing on a rooftop on Los Angeles and mimicked summer desert conditions. In this experiment the air temperatures where about above 99F for several days. The cacti were all grown in soil that was sandy which is similar to there native habitat. Yet half of them had rocks covering the surface of soil the stems of these plants had a temperature internally which was about 39F lower then those grown in just sandy soil. Th cacti in just sandy soil all died, but those in the rocky soil survived. This survival was aided by the root contraction because it lowered the stem temperature. "Even in rocky soil, experimental plants attained nearly lethal temperatures during a summer heat wave in Los Angeles" said North. Meaning that maybe root contraction and rocky soil wont be enough to protect if desert temperatures get any higher due to global warming.
I chose this article because we are doing products on packaging and how if you do not recycle it effects your environment, so I chose to do this current event because it explained an effect of global warming. I think that to prevent even the predicament of having plants that are trying to protect themselves against global warming would not be happening if we could better sustain our planet and we can do this by recycling, turning off light, etc. So many little things can help.

American Journal of Botany.
"Can cacti 'escape' underground in high temperatures?
How a certain species will potentially handle
global warming." ScienceDaily 25 November
2010. 28 November 2010
/releases/2010/11/101124162220.htm>.