ABSTRACT
All living organisms are affected by their environment. Clearly, organisms have developed responses to many environmental stresses including thermal stress, wounding, oxidative stress, and to control invasive or transposable elements. Various lines of research have shown that the genome can be modified both during development and under various types of environmental stresses. One of the results of such modifications is the selective, quantitative variations in specific families of DNA. The environmental induction of heritable changes in the inbred flax variety Stormont Cirrus is one well-described plant system in which genomic alterations occur in response to specific, defined environments. The changes in the nuclear DNA associated with the environmentally induced heritable changes have been extensively characterized. The chapter will be easier to determine when the mechanisms are clearer, and the genetic control characterized. Then it will be possible to detect the presence or absence of specific activities relating to the environmental induction of genetic change in a wide variety of species.
