Green plants produce a specific gas when under attack to both directly ward off herbivores and pathogens and indirectly lure in herbivore predators.
Longleaf pines support one another through mycorrhizae – mutually beneficial relationships between certain fungi and the trees’ roots.
Justin Meissen/Flickr
We may think of plants as passive life forms, but they can cooperate, share resources, send one another warnings, and distance themselves from their communities when survival depends on it.
Though not this obvious from the outside, plants are keeping time.
Hua Lu
Hua Lu, University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Linda Wiratan, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Precisely calibrated timekeepers are found in organisms from all domains of life. Biologists are studying how they influence plant/pathogen interactions – what they learn could lead to human medicines.
Animals have an easy life. They can run, hide, or bite back when predators are on the prowl. Plants cannot. Instead they have evolved to deploy a range of defence mechanisms including chemical warfare…