Chemical information transfer between plants: back to the future

Chemical information conveyance between organisms has been well established for a wide range of organisms including protozoa, invertebrates, vertebrates and plant-parasitic plants. During the past 20 years, various studies have addressed whether chemical information conveyance also occurs between damaged and undamaged plants and many interesting pieces of evidence have been presented. To date. this research field has been restricted to the question whether and how plants (in general) are involved in plant-to-plant communication. However, apart from mechanistic questions, evolutionary questions should be addressed asking why plants do (or do not) exploit their neighbour's information and whether their strategy is affected by e.g. environmental conditions or previous experience. Recent progress in the field of chemical information conveyance between damaged and undamaged plants warrants an intensified study of this exciting topic in chemical ecology. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.