Department of Environmental Science, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland.
Plant Signal Behav. 2011 Jul;6(7):1016-8. doi: 10.4161/psb.6.7.15551.
Since the first reports that undamaged plants gain defensive benefits following exposure to damaged neighbors, the idea that plants may signal to each other has attracted much interest. There has also been substantial debate concerning the ecological significance of the process and the evolutionary drivers. Part of this debate has centered on the distance over which signaling between plants occurs in nature. In a recent study we showed that an ozone concentration of 80 ppb, commonly encountered in nature, significantly reduces the distance over which plant-plant signaling occurs in lima bean. We went on to show that degradation of herbivore-induced plant volatiles by ozone is the likely mechanism for this. The key question remaining from our work was that if ozone is degrading the signal in transit between plants, which chemicals are responsible for transmitting the signal in purer air? Here we present the results of a small scale experiment testing the role of the two most significant herbivore-induced terpenes and discuss our results in terms of other reported functions for these chemicals in plant-plant signaling.
自从首次报道称，未受损的植物在接触受损的邻居后会获得防御性益处以来，植物之间可能相互传递信号的观点引起了广泛关注。关于这一过程的生态意义和进化驱动力，也存在大量争议。部分争议集中在植物之间信号传递在自然界中发生的距离上。在最近的一项研究中，我们表明，在自然界中常见的 80 ppb 臭氧浓度会显著降低菜豆之间发生植物间信号传递的距离。我们接着表明，臭氧对草食性动物诱导的植物挥发物的降解是造成这种情况的可能机制。我们研究工作中留下的关键问题是，如果臭氧在植物间传递的信号中降解，那么在更纯净的空气中负责传递信号的化学物质是什么？在这里，我们介绍了一个小规模实验的结果，该实验测试了两种最重要的草食性动物诱导萜烯的作用，并根据这些化学物质在植物间信号传递中的其他报告功能讨论了我们的结果。
