Plantwatch: Neighbouring plants warn each other about incoming stress

A study of Arabidopsis thaliana plants found that plants growing together activated genes to protect themselves, while isolated plants did not

Plants growing close to each other can warn each other about stresses in their lives.

Thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana) plants were grown on their own or crowded so close together they were touching each other. When all the plants were then stressed with intense light, the isolated plants suffered severe damage, but the crowds of plants were able to cope with the stress. In fact, it just took an hour for the crowded plants to switch on more than 2,000 of their genes that were involved in protecting against a host of different stresses; in contrast, the isolated plants showed little sign of any extra gene activity.