"It sounds like fiction from “The Lord of the Rings.” An enemy begins attacking a tree. The tree fends it off and sends out a warning message. Nearby trees set up their own defenses. The forest is saved.
But you don’t need a magical Ent from J.R.R. Tolkien’s world to conjure this scene. Real trees on our Earth can communicate and warn each other of danger — and a new study explains how.
The study found injured plants emit certain chemical compounds, which can infiltrate a healthy plant’s inner tissues and activate defenses from within its cells. A better understanding of this mechanism could allow scientists and farmers to help fortify plants against insect attacks or drought long before they happen.
The study marks the first time researchers have been able to “visualize plant-to-plant communication,” said Masatsugu Toyota, senior author of the study, which was published Tuesday in Nature Communications. “We can probably hijack this system to inform the entire plant to activate different stress responses against a future threat or environmental threats, such as drought.”"
Kasha Patel reports for the Washington Post October 21, 2023.
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