- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The virtual seminar is set for 4:10 to 5 p.m., Wednesday, Dec. 9 and will be hosted by Professor Richard "Rick" Karban of the Department of Entomology and Nematology. To attend, access this form for the direct link.
"As sessile organisms, plants have to adjust their metabolism to ever-changing environmental conditions in order to stay in place and successfully reproduce," Kessler says in his abstract. "Thereby plants orchestrate interactions with other organisms (e.g. other plants, herbivores, pathogens, predators etc.) by providing cues or signals to whoever can read them. The seemingly universal language used to manipulate those interactions is chemical. This presentation reviews some of the Kessler Lab research on the ecological functionality and environmental context-dependency of chemical information transfer in the charismatic Northeastern goldenrod plants, Solidago altissima."
As a chemical ecologist, his research focuses on the mechanisms, ecological consequences and the evolution of plant induced responses to herbivore damage.
"Moreover, we put a particular emphasis on studying the ecological functions and evolution of plant metabolic responses and chemical information transfer in the plants' native habitats. With more recent projects my group tries to apply some of the chemical ecology principles found in native systems to control insect pests in agricultural systems. My research includes a number of different study systems in New York, Utah, Peru, Costa Rica, Colombia and Kenya."
Professor Kessler received his master's degree from the University of Würzbug, Germany, where he studied ecology, genetics and geobotany. He earned his doctorate from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology and University of Jena, Germany.
Cooperative Extension specialist Ian Grettenberg, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, is coordinating the seminars. For any technical issues, contact Grettenberger at imgrettenberger@ucdavis.edu.
Resources:
- Generations of Insect Attacks Drive Plants to 'Talk' Publicly (The Scientist, March 1, 2020)
- Plants Use a Common 'Language' for Emergency Alerts (Cornell Chronicle, Oct. 2, 2019)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Karban is an international authority on plant communication.
“Rick's pioneering discoveries on plant communication through volatile compounds certainly merit this recognition,” said Steve Nadler, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
ESA, in announcing the list of 27 fellows, said that its fellowship program recognizes the many ways in which its members contribute to ecological research and discovery, communication, education and pedagogy, and management and policy.
Karban is the author of the newly published 240-page book, Plant Sensing and Communication (University of Chicago Press), considered a “landmark in its field,” said Graeme Ruxton of the University of St. Andrews, UK, co-author of Experimental Design for the Life Sciences and Plant-Animal Communication.
“Karban seeks to argue that plants behave—that they sense their environment, detect and communicate with an array of different organisms, and respond to their sense of the environment and communication,” Ruxton said. ”He is very successful in this, demonstrating that plant sensing and communication is a vibrant area of current research with still plenty more to discover.”
Karban has researched plant communication in sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) on the east side of the Sierra since 1995. His groundbreaking research on plant communication among kin, published in February 2013 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, drew international attention. In that study, Karban and his co-researchers found that kin have distinct advantages when it comes to plant communication, just as “the ability of many animals to recognize kin has allowed them to evolve diverse cooperative behaviors.”
“Plants responded more effectively to volatile cues from close relatives than from distant relatives in all four experiments and communication reduced levels of leaf damage experienced over the three growing seasons,” they wrote.
Karban is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and recipient of the 1990 George Mercer Award from ESA for outstanding research. He was named an outstanding professor, ecology, at UC Davis in 1986. He has published more than 100 journal articles and now, three books.
Karban is featured in the Dec. 23-30, 2013 edition of The New Yorker in Michael Pollan's piece, “The Intelligent Plant: Scientists Debate a New Way of Understanding Plants."
Karban received his bachelor's degree in environmental studies from Haverford (Penn.) College in 1977 and his doctorate in biology from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, in 1982. He served as a lecturer at Haverford College for six months before joining the UC Davis faculty in May 1982 as an assistant professor. He advanced to associate professor in 1988 and to full professor in 1994.
Karban's former graduate student, Anurag Agrawal, professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, was also elected a 2017 fellow for his “innovative contributions to community and evolutionary ecology, especially through providing conceptual advances and rigorous experimental work on plant-insect interactions.”
Agrawal received his doctorate at UC Davis in 1999.
Another UC Davis professor, John Stachowicz of the UC Davis Department of Evolution and Ecology was elected as a 2017 fellow “for his fundamental contributions to the fields of symbiosis and mutualism, multi-trophic species interactions, biogeography, and invasion biology.”
ESA established its fellows program in 2012 with the goal of honoring its members and supporting their competitiveness and advancement to leadership positions in the Society, at their institutions, and in broader society, said spokesperson Lisa Lester.
(The Ecological Society of America, founded in 1915, is the world's largest community of professional ecologists, and committed to advancing the understanding of life on Earth. The 10,000 member Society publishes five journals and a membership bulletin and broadly shares ecological information through policy, media outreach, and education initiatives. The Society's Annual Meeting attracts 4,000 attendees and features the most recent advances in ecological science. Visit the ESA website at http://www.esa.org.)
Related Links:
Rick Karban: Kin Recognition Affects Plant Communication and Defense
Past ESA Fellows
TED-Ed Original Lessons: "Can Plants Talk to Each Other?"
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Yes, they can.
And now UC Davis ecologist Richard “Rick” Karban's research is “talking” in TED-Ed Original Lessons and drawing international attention from thousands of teachers, their students and other Internet viewers.
Karban's work on plant communication is featured in an interactive lesson plan where "words and ideas of educators are brought to life by professional animators.” Teachers can customize the lesson plan to engage their students.
Plants can eavesdrop, sense danger in the environment, and can distinguish friend from foe, says Karban, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, who recently published a 250-page comprehensive book, Plant Sensing and Communication (University of Chicago Press), hailed as a landmark in its field.
A plant under a predatory attack will emit volatile chemical cues, enabling its neighboring plants to adjust their defenses to better protect themselves.
Nearly 130,000 have accessed the lessons, with nearly 2000 questions answered. In the TED-ED lessons, teachers can interact with their students, quizzing them on:
- What are some characteristics of the language of plants?
- Why do plants communicate? What advantages might they get from communicating that increase their chances of survival and reproduction?
- In what ways are communication systems between plants similar to communication systems between animals? In what ways are they different?
The creators of the plant communication lesson are Karban, educator; Yukai Du, director; Angus MacRae, composer; Eleanor Nelson, script editor; and Jiaqi Wang, animator.
Karban has researched plant communication in sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) on the east side of the Sierra since 1995. His groundbreaking research on plant communication among kin, published in February 2013 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, drew international attention. In that study, Karban and his co-researchers found that kin have distinct advantages when it comes to plant communication, just as “the ability of many animals to recognize kin has allowed them to evolve diverse cooperative behaviors.”
“Plants responded more effectively to volatile cues from close relatives than from distant relatives in all four experiments and communication reduced levels of leaf damage experienced over the three growing seasons,” they wrote.
In other words, if you're a sagebrush and your nearby kin is being eaten by a grasshopper, deer, jackrabbit, caterpillar or other predator, communication is more effective if you're closely related. Through volatile cues, your kin will inform you of the danger so you can adjust your defenses.
Karban likened this kind of plant communication to eavesdropping.” Plants “hear” the volatile cues of their neighbors as predators damage them.
The most basic form of communication? When a plant is being shaded, it senses the diminished light quality caused by a competitor and responds by moving away, Karban says.
What are 10 things to know about plant sensing and communication? According to Karban:
- Plants sense their environments and respond.
- Although they lack central nervous systems, they process information and appear to "behave intelligently."
- They sense the position of competitors and "forage" for light.
- They sense the availability of water and nutrients in the soil and "forage" for these resources.
- Their decisions are influenced by past experiences, akin to memory.
- The respond to reliable cues that predict future events, allowing them to "anticipate."
- Plants respond differently to cues that they themselves produce, allowing them to distinguish self from non-self.
- They respond differently to close relatives and strangers.
- Plants that are prevented from sensing or responding experience reduced fitness.
- By understanding the "language" of plant responses, we can grow healthier and more productive plants.
The most basic form of communication? When a plant is being shaded, it senses the diminished light quality caused by a competitor and responds by moving away, Karban says.
Karban is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and has published more than 100 journal articles and now, three books.
Karban is featured in the Dec. 23-30, 2013 edition of The New Yorker in Michael Pollan's piece, “The Intelligent Plant: Scientists Debate a New Way of Understanding Plants."
Related Link:
Rick Karban: Kin Recognition Affects Plant Communication and Defense
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
So says ecologist Richard Karban, professor of entomology in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, in his newly published book, Plant Sensing and Communication (University of Chicago Press).
The 240-page book is a “landmark in its field,” said Graeme Ruxton of the University of St. Andrews, UK, co-author of Experimental Design for the Life Sciences and Plant-Animal Communication.
The book is “the first comprehensive overview of what is known about how plants perceive their environments, communicate those perceptions, and learn,” according to the publisher. “Facing many of the same challenges as animals, plants have developed many similar capabilities: they sense light, chemicals, mechanical stimulation, temperature, electricity, and sound. Moreover, prior experiences have lasting impacts on sensitivity and response to cues; plants, in essence, have memory."
Added the publisher: “Nor are their senses limited to the processes of an individual plant: plants eavesdrop on the cues and behaviors of neighbors and—for example, through flowers and fruits—exchange information with other types of organisms. Far from inanimate organisms limited by their stationary existence, plants, this book makes unquestionably clear, are in constant and lively discourse.”
What are 10 things to know about plant sensing and communication? According to Karban:
- Plants sense their environments and respond.
- Although they lack central nervous systems, they process information and appear to "behave intelligently."
- They sense the position of competitors and "forage" for light.
- They sense the availability of water and nutrients in the soil and "forage" for these resources.
- Their decisions are influenced by past experiences, akin to memory.
- The respond to reliable cues that predict future events, allowing them to "anticipate."
- Plants respond differently to cues that they themselves produce, allowing them to distinguish self from non-self.
- They respond differently to close relatives and strangers.
- Plants that are prevented from sensing or responding experience reduced fitness.
- By understanding the "language" of plant responses, we can grow healthier and more productive plants.
Karban has researched plant communication in sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) on the east side of the Sierra since 1995. His groundbreaking research on plant communication among kin, published in February 2013 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, drew international attention. In that study, Karban and his co-researchers found that kin have distinct advantages when it comes to plant communication, just as “the ability of many animals to recognize kin has allowed them to evolve diverse cooperative behaviors.”
“Plants responded more effectively to volatile cues from close relatives than from distant relatives in all four experiments and communication reduced levels of leaf damage experienced over the three growing seasons,” they wrote.
In other words, if you're a sagebrush and your nearby kin is being eaten by a grasshopper, deer, jackrabbit, caterpillar or other predator, communication is more effective if you're closely related. Through volatile cues, your kin will inform you of the danger so you can adjust your defenses.
Karban likened this kind of plant communication to eavesdropping.” Plants “hear” the volatile cues of their neighbors as predators damage them.
The most basic form of communication? When a plant is being shaded, it senses the diminished light quality caused by a competitor and responds by moving away, Karban says.
“Plants are smart,” wrote Adrian Barnett of New Scientist in reviewing the book. “But to notice we have to overcome our ingrained cultural biases. . . . Clearly, we will never play chess with a rose, nor ask the orchid on our windowsill for advice. But that is the point: humans are guilty of serious parochialism, of defining intelligence in terms of a nervous system and muscle-based speed that enables things to be done fast…Plants are highly responsive, attuned to gravity, grains of sand, sunlight, starlight, the footfalls of tiny insects, and to slow rhythms outside our range. They are subtle, aware, strategic beings whose lives involve an environmental sensitivity very distant from the simple flower and seed factories of popular imagination.”
Barnett praised Karban's book as a “timely, highly accessible summary of fast-developing fields.”
Karban is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and has published more than 100 journal articles and now, three books.
Karban is featured in the Dec. 23-30, 2013 edition of The New Yorker in Michael Pollan's piece, “The Intelligent Plant: Scientists Debate a New Way of Understanding Plants."
Related Link:
Rick Karban: Kin Recognition Affects Plant Communication and Defense
Feb. 13, 2013
If you're not closely related, communication won't be as effective.
Newly published research in today's Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences shows that kin have distinct advantages when it comes to plant communication, just as “the ability of many animals to recognize kin has allowed them to evolve diverse cooperative behaviors,” says lead researcher and ecologist Richard Karban, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Entomology.
For example, fire ants can recognize kin. “Ants will destroy queens that are not relatives but protect those who are,” Karban said.
That ability is less well studied for plants, until now.
“When sagebrush plants are damaged by their herbivores, they emit volatiles that cause their neighbors to adjust their defenses,” Karban said. “These adjustments reduce rates of damage and increase growth and survival of the neighbors.”
The research, “Kin Recognition Affects Plant Communication and Defense,” is co-authored by two scientists from Japan and two from UC Davis: Kaori Shiojiri of the Hakubi Center for Advanced Research, Kyoto University, and Satomi Ishizaki of the Graduate School of Science and Technology, Niigata University; and William Wetzel of the UC Davis Center for Population Biology, and Richard Evans of the UC Davis Department of Plant Science.
To simulate predator damage, the researchers “wounded” the plants by clipping them and then studied the responses to the volatile cues. They found that the plants that received cues from experimentally clipped close relatives experienced less leaf damage over the growing season that those that received cues from clipped neighbors that were more distantly related.
“More effective defense adds to a growing list of favorable consequences of kin recognition for plants,” they wrote.
The researchers performed their field work on sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) at Taylor Meadow, UC Sagehen Creek Field Station, near Truckee. They conducted four field experiments over three years “that compared the proportion of leaves that were damaged by herbivores over the growing season when plants were provided with volatile cues clipped from a close relative versus cues from a distant relative,” the scientists wrote.
For closely related kin, they snipped stem cuttings (clones), potted them, and then returned the pots to the field. They determined relatedness “by using microsatellites that varied among individual sagebrush clones.”
The result: “Plants responded more effectively to volatile cues from close relatives than from distant relatives in all four experiments and communication reduced levels of leaf damage experienced over the three growing seasons,” they wrote. “This result was unlikely to be caused by volatiles repelling or poisoning insect herbivores.”
Karban, who has studied plant communication among the sagebrush at the site since 1999, likened the plant communication to neighbors “eavesdropping.” They “hear” the volatile cues of their neighbors as predators damage them.
Plants do communicate, Karban said. A basic form of plant communication occurs when it is being shaded and it responds by moving away.
“Some definitions of communication require that both the sender and receiver benefit by engaging in the behavior,” the researchers wrote. “Sagebrush is a long-lived perennial, making estimates of the costs and benefits of communication difficult although plants that responded to volatile cues from damaged neighbors experienced greater survival at the seedling stage and greater production of new branches and inflorescences over 12 years.”
Karban said that the volatiles released by “experimentally damaged plants are highly variable among individuals.”
“In the future we plan to examine this chemical variability to determine which chemicals are active as signals and why they exhibit so much variability,” Karban said. “Ultimately, we would like to be able to understand the chemical nature of the volatile cues, how plants use them to communicate, and whether as agriculturalists, we can control host plant resistance to herbivores.”
The work was supported by grants from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Related Link
Rick Karban's Lab Research