Conclusion

Understanding the within- and inter-generation plant defense response through epigenetics requires the combined analyses of diverse species, their functional phenotypes, and the associated epigenetic variation. This chapter simultaneously shows the significance of epigenetics and the dire necessity of new studies that also should be conducted long-term with diverse species under conditions better matching the plant's natural environment to observe an ecologically more meaningful plant defense response. I also show that low genomic resolution has hindered the investigation of the correlation between ecological factors and epigenetic mechanisms in non-model organisms.

Furthermore, to have complete knowledge of underlying mechanisms, it is compulsory to have a collaboration between ecologists and molecular biologists to develop a proper toolkit. Following these recommendations, it should be possible to unravel the combined contribution of genetic and epigenetic variation to the expression of phenotypes and contribute to filling current knowledge gaps.