Plants can communicate and send alerts in dangerous situations. This is what new Japanese research claims that considered pests and environmental threats.
This connection allows healthy plants to receive signals from injured plants and activate their defenses to ward off danger.
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Carried out by the University of Saitama, in Japan, the study was carried out with the analysis of chemical compounds from caterpillars in tomato and mustard plantations. The result was published in October in the journal Nature Communications.
Since the 1980s, science has defended the thesis that plants have the ability to communicate in situations of danger or stress. At that time, a defensive relationship between trees was observed after an attack by caterpillars.
Scientists identified that the attacked plants expelled a substance that repelled the pests. This defense behavior was replicated by other trees that were healthy.
The main line of analysis points out that trees communicate through aerial signals, reinforcing the idea that plants have a communication specific.
The researchers called this interaction “plant-plant communication” or “listening between plants”, as pointed out in the study by Saitama University.
(Image: Freepik/Reproduction)
Plant defense communication
The present study took into consideration data from tomato and mustard plants that were exposed to different chemical compounds.
The researchers added a fluorescent component through genetic modification, making it possible to observe the calcium ions in each plant.
In one of the results, the team led by researcher Masatsugu Toyota observed that a healthy mustard plant reacted to chemical compounds from another injured plant. These were absorbed for protection.
Despite the successful results, the study continues to try to understand how plants identify the appropriate type of defense for each threat.
Likewise, they want to understand the relationship between calcium and two chemical compounds that are always absorbed by plants.
For science and agriculture, the university's study could be a solution to protect plants from pests and other environmental threats that affect cultivation.
* With information from Nature Communications It is Digital Look.
