What Do Leaves Talk About? Scientists Discover Leaves of Plants Communicate Feelings with Each Other, Send Chains Messages

The model plant used to do this research was Arabidopsis thaliana. Researchers applied light stress to a single leaf and verified that the rest presented the same behaviour in the face of changing environmental conditions. Aurelio Gómez Cadenas and researcher Sara I. Zandalinas, co-author of this work who defended her doctoral thesis at the UJI a year ago and is currently continuing her research at the University of North Texas, point out that the increase in light located in just one leaf “triggers a wave of chemical signalling in the form of a waterfall to the rest of the leaves of the plant”. Specifically, reactive oxygen species and electrons participate in the propagation of these wave signals of calcium so that the whole plant reacts to the induced light stress as if all of it had received the same amount of light.

The scientific impact of this discovery is very high, in the opinion of Gómez Cadenas, since “it establishes the bases to design new agronomic strategies that increase the tolerance of the crops to the conditions of abiotic stress”. In addition, these results can materialize in genetic improvement programmes and farming operations that “make it possible for species of agronomic interest to produce more efficiently and sustainably in the climate change scenario in which we find ourselves”.

PRESERVATION OF ECOSYSTEMS BEFORE GLOBAL WARMING

The results of this work published in Science Signaling will also serve for future work focused on species whose ecosystems are already severely affected by extreme environmental conditions, often linked to global warming. Ultimately, “our findings will serve to discover the way in which plants coordinate their responses to combined stresses — for example, high temperatures and drought acting simultaneously — and help configure environmental actions to mitigate the effects of climate change on ecosystems with a high ecological value”.

Aurelio Gómez Cadenas is a professor in the Department of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Environment of the Universitat Jaume I, where he heads a multidisciplinary research group that deals with different aspects of biochemistry and molecular biology of plant and animal species subjected to adverse conditions. He also investigates the impact of climate change on agriculture and the evolutionary connection between biological kingdoms.

Contacts and sources:

“Coordinating the overall stomatal response of plants: rapid leaf-to-leaf communication during light stress,” by A.R. Devireddy; R. Mittler at University of North Texas in Denton, TX; S.I. Zandalinas; A. Gómez-Cadenas at Universitat Jaume I in Castello de la Plana, Spain; E. Blumwald at University of California, Davis in Davis, CA. Science Sginaling, 2018 Feb 20;11(518). doi: 10.1126/scisignal.aam9514.