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Environment

Plants rank foes

April 24, 2006 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 84, Issue 17

Sun-loving plants apparently put more emphasis on protecting themselves from the encroachment of neighboring plants than from herbivores, according to researchers at the University of Buenos Aires and Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, to be published online, dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0509805103). A plant can sense the attack of an herbivore or the advance of competing vegetation that could block sunlight. The plant responds by ramping up its defenses, for instance by increasing the production of unpalatable compounds to fend off an herbivore or by altering the angle of its leaves to catch more sun. What happens when a plant faces both types of threats at the same time? Carlos L. Ballaré and colleagues report that a plant's ability to defend itself from an herbivore is significantly impaired when the plant is also threatened by encroaching vegetation. This information could be used to develop crop varieties that would better withstand hungry insects despite crowded planting conditions.

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