Advances in Botanical Research, Volume 82 How Plants Communicate with their Biotic Environment

About this book

How Plants Communicate with Their Biotic Environment addresses how plants perceive the presence of organisms (other plants, microbes, insects and nematodes) living in their proximity, how they manage to be attractive when these organisms are friendly, and how they defend themselves from foes. Specific chapters delve into ecology and defense mechanisms, allelopathy and the role of allelochemicals in plant defense, plant signaling, and plant communication with microbes and animals, including herbivores. In addition, the book presents discussions on communication and its role in plant pollination. This comprehensive resource presents tactics that can be taken from the lab, to the bench, to the forest.

Contents

Part 1: Plant-Plant Communication
1. From the Lab Bench to the Forest: Ecology and Defence Mechanisms of Volatile-Mediated `Talking Trees'
2. Allelopathy and the Role of Allelochemicals in Plant Defence
3. Communication Between Host Plants and Parasitic Plants
4. Plant-Plant Communication Through Common Mycorrhizal Networks

Part 2: Plant Communication With Microbes
5. Plant Communication With Associated Microbiota in the Spermosphere, Rhizosphere and Phyllosphere
6. Chatting With a Tiny Belowground Member of the Holobiome: Communication Between Plants and Growth-Promoting Rhizobacteria
7. Effector-Mediated Communication of Filamentous Plant Pathogens With Their Hosts
8. Commonalities in Symbiotic Plant-Microbe Signalling

Part 3: Plant Communication With Animals
9. Plant-Pollinator Communication
10. Mimicry and Deception in Pollination
11. Plant Communication With Herbivores
12. Communication of Sedentary Plant-Parasitic Nematodes With Their Host Plants

Customer Reviews

Biography

After studying in Paris, Guillaume Becard got his PhD at Laval University (Canada) and did a four-year post-doc in a USDA laboratory in Philadelphia (USA). He was then recruited by the University of Toulouse (France) in 1993 as a biology professor. He is studying an ancient and widespread plant symbiosis that occurs between plant roots and certain soil fungi called arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. This symbiosis enhances mineral and water nutrition of plants and their resistance to environmental stress. With his research team he has contributed in recent years to the discover of the molecular signals and ancestral mechanisms involved in the recognition between the plant and the fungus. He is also involved through industrial collaboration in the promotion of the agronomic use of mycorrhizae to reduce requirements of irrigation, chemical fertilizers and pesticides.