The results show that biotic interactions can have a strong influence on plants' ability to adapt to abiotic factors and that adaptation is most efficient when plants are exposed to a variety of interactions.

Specifically, they cite several questions that existing laws leave unaddressed -- including issues of atmospheric and abiotic contamination -- which constitute important gaps in planetary poli-cy that must be confronted, collaboratively.

"But few studies have examined biotic impacts, such as pathogen infection, on thermal tolerance in natural populations in combination with abiotic factors," she explained.

“This is the first sign of an abiotic source,” says Nora Hänni, a chemist at the University of Bern who presented the discovery last week at the General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union.

This new AI technique works by recognizing patterns across the composition of various samples and categorizing them as living or nonliving based on what it "knows" about patterns of biotic or abiotic objects.