Deciphering Chemical Language of Plant Communication by James D. Blande & Robert Glinwood

Author:James D. Blande & Robert Glinwood
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

7.6 Future Research

While the concept of plant–plant communication via volatiles underwent a long period of debate, there is now convincing evidence that plant VOCs hold ecologically relevant information that neighbouring plants, particularly close relatives, can recognise and respond to. Nevertheless, there are still many questions that need to be answered before we can attain a more holistic understanding of the phenomenon and the mechanisms behind it. The predisposition of most researchers to report statistically significant or ‘positive’ results may have also hindered our understanding of this phenomenon. In order to further identify the signalling compounds that mediate plant–plant communication and the context in which information exchange between plants occurs, accurate reporting of experimental results, including negative results that do not conform to our current paradigms, is essential. Below, I outline some key areas where future efforts would offer great promise for discovery and even significant breakthroughs.

First, future research should continue characterising the bioactive volatile components in the VOC blends that reliably transmit information between plants, examining the specific qualitative and quantitative features of the compounds that plants perceive. Moreover, the interaction of different active compounds, the role of the whole VOC blend as well as the impact of background VOC noise also need to be evaluated. This knowledge is important as it can be exploited to tweak our current agricultural practices to make crops better defended against pests. For example, we can genetically modify plants to make them more sensitive to pest attack and more rapid at releasing key active compounds. When grown alongside field crops, these plants, like a ‘sentinel’, would be the first to detect and react to danger, alarming neighbouring crop plants.

Second, more efforts need to be diverted into understanding the recognition and perception of volatile cues as well as the further signal transduction. The big challenge is to determine whether these signals are internalised and transduced by receptor-mediated processes, whether they interact with the plasma membrane to initiate signal transduction cascades or whether they are simply taken up by the plant and metabolised into defensive compounds. The characterisation of receptors that are able to detect volatile compounds remains the biggest challenge.

Third, the ecological and evolutionary significance and the fitness consequences of information exchange between plants are still largely unexplored. More studies in a variety of habitats and using more plant species with different life histories are needed to determine the prevalence and ecological importance of plant–plant VOC transmission. Although plants are clearly responsive to volatile cues, it remains unclear how frequently or reliably plant VOCs transmit information between plants in natural settings. The lifetime fitness consequences for both the VOC emitters and responders require thorough scrutiny, particularly under natural conditions. This will help to elucidate the adaptive functions of VOC emissions and the driving force in the evolution of plant–plant volatile communication.

Finally, the impacts of global change on the efficacy of plant–plant VOC transmission need to be further evaluated. VOC emissions vary substantially in nature due to abiotic factors such as temperature, wind and radiation and will become more variable and unpredictable under local and global change.

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