Plant defence – News, Research and Analysis – The Conversation

Green leaf volatiles are a plant’s rapid response to threats. Star61/Wikimedia Commons

January 29, 2024

That sharp, green smell of freshly cut grass? It’s a plant’s cry for help – and it may work as a less toxic pesticide for farmers

Sasimonthakan Tanarsuwongkul, University of South Carolina

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

April 14, 2021

Plants thrive in a complex world by communicating, sharing resources and transforming their environments

Beronda L. Montgomery, Michigan State University

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

November 26, 2017

Studying circadian rhythms in plants and their pathogens might lead to precision medicine for people

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.

March 28, 2014

Plants release chemical weapons and deploy insect armies in their defence

Angela White, University of Sheffield

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…

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