system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Do animals (and plants) that are accustomed to seasonal weather changes e.g bears, deer, wolves etc. lose this trait over the generations when they are transplanted to climates that do not have winters or have very mild winters?

If the whole world were to experience some drastic increase in temperature that eliminated winter and lasted a thousand years, would seasonal plants and animals, if the world set itself right again, be able to survive a winter? And also, how did plants and animals react with the end of interglacial periods?
gpt
Most internal systems of a plant connected to seasonal changes are actually light regulated, not temperature. 

Plants have an internal clock mechanism that follows a circadian rhythm, meaning that it takes approximately 24 hours for one clock cycle to run from start to end. This mechanism is mostly light independent, as it only uses light to make sure that the internal clock is synchronised with the actual day/night cycle. This clock works by a certain cycle of transcriptional factors (using the genes TOC1, CCA1 and LHY iirc).

A plant can use this internal clock and compare it to the actual day/night cycle and use this to measure how long the days are. Or more importantly, how long the nights are. If a plant realises that the period of darkness lasts a specific amount of time (differs per plant) then this could entise it to flower and create new offspring.

Unfortunately, this entire mechanism is still somewhat temperature related, and a significant change in outside temperature could affect flowering time.


Besides all of this, most plants rely on certain insects to pollinate their flowers. To achieve this, a certain plant must be flowering at the exact same time of the year that their assosiated insects are present, otherwise it would be impossible for the plants to be pollinated if they do not have other pollinators beside that certain insect.

The problem here is that most insects tend to progress through their stages of life faster at slightly higher temperatures (a catterpillar cocoon at 20 degrees Celcius would turn faster than a cocoon at 15 degrees). If a plant relies solely on a single type of insect, and this insect is not present at the time of pollination for several years, then it could be possible that the plant will go extinct if no other animals pollinate them in time if there is a large enough rise in temperature.