Grace, An interesting piece. One thing embedded in the report is the idea what a plant recognizes as self versus non-self. Plant ecologists have long recognized that some plant species seem to prefer a clumped existence while others space themselves with near-military precision... Moreover, the work provides strong indications that some plants can differentiate between their own roots and those of their same-species neighbors. This raises the tantalizing possibility that some plants distinguish between self and nonself in a process somewhat akin to the way animal immune systems recognize foreign substances... Interestingly, Mahall and Callaway (University of California, Santa Barbara) saw contact inhibition only among Ambrosia roots from different plants; when root tips from the same Ambrosia plant came in contact with each other, no inhibition occurred. That finding, they say, "suggests that this detection mechanism involves a capability of self-nonself recognition." This has some interesting implications with regard to our discussion about "competition" between multiple stems in a multitrunk tree and between trunks in a clonal colony. It suggests that they are might not be strictly competitive in the same way that they are competitive with foreign trunks.
Ed Frank http://nature-web-network.blogspot.com/ http://primalforests.ning.com/ http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=profile&id=709156957 -- Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org Send email to [email protected] Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en To unsubscribe send email to [email protected]
