Stress conditioning consists of exposing organisms to sublethal stress, with the goal of inducing physiological changes that increase tolerance to future stress events. There has been documented evidence that some changes can be passed throughout generations in both plants and animals. Stress conditioning can be artificially induced in a laboratory environment to create desired responses based on their environments. Notable examples include a 1989 experiment which used stress conditioning via heat shock on rat kidneys to extend their safe cold storage time to 48 hours. More recently, stress conditioning is being studied as a potential solution for the preservation of coral reefs as they are continually exposed to ocean warming and acidification.
