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green living
PLANTS TALK
Discover Their Secret Language
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by April Thompson
hile flowers are We underestimate Ohio. “In the 1970s, reknown to lean what plants can searchers began to notice plants under attack respond toward light, a do because their by increasing defensive growing body of research communication is chemistry—things that is demonstrating plants make a plant distasteful or also respond to sounds and invisible to us. toxic to predators,” he says. scents—and then herald ~Heidi Appel Researchers noticed that the news to their neighbors. control plants also seemed Far from being passive life to respond to their neighbors being atforms, members of the plant kingdom are tacked. adept at interacting with their environSince then, Schultz, Karban and other ments and with each other. investigators have discovered that plants “Plants don’t have specialized sense emit complex profiles of odors in the form organs, but like animals, plants are very of volatile compounds that can be picked capable of sensing their environment. They up by other plants, as well as insects. perceive cues, weigh different alternatives and allocate resources in very sophisticated Studying sagebrush in the Sierra Nevada mountains, Karban found that plants unways,” says Richard Karban, professor of der duress emit chemical cues that trigger entomology at the University of California nearby plants to increase their defenses. at Davis and the author of Plant Sensing These odors vary with the type of and Communication. threat and time, working to attract polBetter Living Through linators during the day and fending off enemies at night, Schultz says. A plant being Chemistry Early evidence of plant communication was eaten by an insect may release a chemical discovered by accident, according to Jack that attracts predatory insects looking for Schultz, senior executive director of research herbivore prey. “There is a clear adaptive development at the University of Toledo, in advantage in attracting the ‘enemy of your
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