Perceiving Predators: Understanding How Plants 'Sense' Herbivore Attack
Published:22 Feb.2021 Source:Tokyo University of Science
Nature has its way of maintaining balance. This statement rightly holds true for plants that are eaten by herbivores -- insects or even mammals. Interestingly, these plants do not just silently allow themselves to be consumed and destroyed; in fact, they have evolved a defense system to warn them of predator attacks and potentially even ward them off.
The defense systems arise as a result of inner and outer cellular signaling in the plants, as well as ecological cues. Plants have developed several ways of sensing damage; a lot of these involve the sensing of various "elicitor" molecules produced by either the predator or the plants themselves and initiation of an "SOS signal" of sorts.