NEW YORK, July 21 — To protect themselves against drought or flooding, some types of plants naturally secrete an acid comparable to aspirin. This surprising process could pave the way for exploring new means of protecting other types of plants from the effects of climate change.

Is salicylic acid the answer to protection from water stress? This is the substance (comparable to aspirin) that some plants are able to create, as demonstrated by a study published in Science Advances. To reach these conclusions, US researchers at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) studied a model plant called Arabidopsis, often considered a weed.