title: Do plants tap SOS signals from their infested neighbours?
abstract: Ecologist have not been able to show unambigous evidence for the involvement of plant-to-plant signal transfer in the defence strategies of plants. However, phytopathologists and plant physiologists recently demonstrated that resistance in undamaged plants can be elicited by volatiles of plant origin. Now that empirical evidence is accumulating, there is every reason to ask why plants use the available information on the infestion status of their neighbours and to assess the fitness advantages associated with the tuning of their defence. The debate on the ecological and evolutionary significance of interplant communication needs to be revived.
authors.affiliation: Dept of Pure and Applied Ecology, University of Amsterdam, Kruislaan 320, 1098 SM Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bruin
authors.forename: M W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Sabelis
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dicke