The broad spectrum of plant associations with other organisms
Abstract
Plants colonize a wide range of habitats and must deal with a plethora of challenges in order to survive. At any one time a plant will likely be responding to a range of environmental limitations, from intense heat or cold to drought, limiting nutrients and invading organisms. Plants have evolved inventive means by which to modify their surrounding environment, with a major target being the control of interacting organisms. On the one hand, the association with other organisms is important to plant survival, providing sources of limiting nutrients or providing services such as fertilization. In this scenario, both organisms benefit from each other, and symbiotic interactions are formed with fungi, bacteria and higher eukaryotes. According to the fossil record, the interaction between plants and microorganisms can be traced back hundreds of million of years, and it has even been proposed that the mutualistic association between plants and mycorrhizal fungi facilitated early colonization of land by plants.
- Publication:
-
Current Opinion in Plant Biology
- Pub Date:
- 2011
- DOI:
- 10.1016/j.pbi.2011.06.001
- Bibcode:
- 2011COPB...14..347O