Last week I discussed the relationship between mycorrhizae and plants, and how this relationship benefits plants in communicating with each other. This week I will discuss a journal article called, “Rumor Has It: Relay Communication of Stress Cues in Plants" in which extensive experimentation was performed to test whether plants use there roots to communicate with each other.
In the study conducted by Falik et al. (2011), the hypothesis was tested that unstressed plants were able to respond to stress cues emitted from their abiotically-stressed neighbors and in turn induce stress responses in additional unstressed plants located nearby. Five Pisum sativum plants were subjected to drought like conditions, they had five neighboring Pisum sativum plants on either side that were under normal ‘unstressed’ conditions. They placed these normal or unstressed plants next to the stressed ones so that they could communicate with each other. On one side the drought induced plants did not share a root system with their neighbor’s (unshared). This meant that they were limited to shoot communication. On the other side the stressed plants shared their rooting volume with the nearest unstressed plant, and all plants shared their rooting volumes with their immediate neighbors (shared), this enabled both root and shoot communication.
The few Pisum sativum plants that were exposed to drought conditions were checked after fifteen minutes, and as expected there was significant stomatal closure observed. But what was more interesting was that the neighboring unstressed and shared root system plants (shared) showed stomatal closure as well and after an hour all of these plants had closed their stomata. No stomatal closure was observed in the neighboring plants that did not share a root system (unshared) with the stressed plants and were therefore reliant on shoot communication. These results demonstrate that unstressed plants are able to perceive and respond to stress cues emitted by the roots of their drought stressed neighbors, and also relay elicit stress responses in further unstressed plants (Falik et al. 2011).
Further work is underway to study the underlying mechanisms of this new mode of plant communication and its possible adaptive implications for the anticipation of forthcoming abiotic stresses by plants.
WOW how cool is that!!! Keep reading to learn more about this fascinating area of plant biology.
Reference
Falik, O, Mordoch, Y, Quansah, L, Fait, A, Novoplansky, A 2011, 'Rumor Has It...: Relay Communication of Stress Cues in Plant', Public Library of Science, vol. 6, no. 11, viewed 30/03/2014, http://search.proquest.com.elibrary.jcu.edu.au/docview/1310932339
Visuals are fun. Apart from water deprivation, what other stress indicators have been tested? Can plants communicate when parasites are present? Or is there a a lack of defense mechanisms so this information is not passed on?
ReplyDeleteBoathouse Friday?
Although I don't think this exact study has been used to test any other indicators. I know that herbivorous activity on plants has been tested, to find out if plants respond to this and to see if they let other plants know of the possible threats. I Outlined this experiment in my first blog if you want to have a read
ReplyDeleteThis is indeed very fascinating! It’s very interesting that, even though resources were plentiful to unstressed plants, they responded in a manner suggestive of stress. This study appeared to be on quite a localised scale. Is there any indication that this could occur on a much larger scale? It would be interesting to know if plants also respond to cues of increased resource availability. I’m looking forward to finding out more!
ReplyDeleteIf plants are connect all to each other as is suggest then there is the capability of these networks to connect large scale plant to each through there root systems. On a large scale it would take a lot longer for the signals and responds to occur but the theory behind it is the same and therefore I don't see why this couldnt occur on large scale basis.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the actual communication between the plants' root systems, is it a chemical communication or, similar to a plants phototropism responses?
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