Volatiles released by undamaged plants mediate the adaptive growth strategies in neighbors.
- Open access
Undamaged Hordeum vulgare plants detect neighbor growth rates via constitutive VOCs, triggering distinct growth and defense responses based on emitter vigor.
- Why it matters: Understanding how plants interpret signals from healthy neighbors is crucial for revealing mechanisms of competitive adaptation and resource allocation in plant communities.
- What they did: The study exposed barley plants to VOCs from cultivars with varying growth rates and analyzed biomass and gene expression changes, identifying cultivar-specific transcriptional shifts.
- The result: Findings show constitutive VOCs serve as reliable cues of neighbor vigor, enabling plants to adaptively reprogram growth and defense, which could inform crop management and ecological models.