Plant-plant communication in tomato: mechanisms underpinning information transfer between plants

Tomato plants infested with Phtorimae absoluta show deep immune-system reconfiguration and coordinated mono- and sesquiterpenoid emission changes over 3 days that prime intact neighbors.

• Why it matters: Mechanistic links are missing for how volatiles from herbivore-attacked plants enhance defense in nearby intact plants, limiting integration into trait-based agroecological frameworks.
• What they did: In a paired 3-day setup, metabolomic reprogramming in sender plants and progressive volatile-emission adjustments were tracked, then receiver priming was tested using volatile-kinetics and information-theory chemodiversity metrics.
• The result: Receiver plants exhibited similar immune-system reprogramming and herbivory-linked sender–receiver chemodiversity relationships, consistent with “mirror” matching of defenses and suggesting chemodiversity can carry transferable information.

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