The news that a flowering weed—mousear cress (Arabidopsis thaliana)—can sense the particular chewing noise of its most common caterpillar predator and adjust its chemical defenses in response led to headlines announcing the discovery of the first “hearing” plant. As plants lack central nervous systems (and, indeed, ears), the mechanisms behind this “hearing” are unquestionably very different from those of our own acoustic sense, but the misleading headlines point to an overlooked truth: plants do in fact perceive environmental cues and respond rapidly to them by changing their chemical, morphological, and behavioral traits. In Plant Sensing and Communication, Richard Karban provides the first comprehensive overview of what is known about how plants perceive their environments, communicate those perceptions, and learn. 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. 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.

Research is showing that plants are in constant and lively discourse--they communicate, signaling to remote organs within an individual, eavesdropping on neighboring individuals, and exchanging information with other organisms ranging from other plants to microbes to animals. Plants lack central nervous systems, and the mechanisms coordinating plant sensing, behavior, and communication are quite different from the systems that accomplish similar tasks in animals. But they are no less impressive from an evolutionary perspective. In "Plant Communication, "Karban puts an ear to the ground to reveal the world of plant communication and information sensing. He reveals their sensory capabilities, the learning capacity of plants, sensory signaling and communication, the different responses to pollinators and predators, and the mechanisms that undergird this impressive behavioral repertoire. The book shows that plants are hardly the inanimate organisms limited by their stationary existence."

This updated and expanded edition explores key methodologies to study the fascinating phenomenon of how plants readjust their growth toward gravity. In addition to the protocols delivering broad applications for gaining insight into other plant physiological processes, this new volume also focuses on techniques involving plants in space or the use of microgravity analogs to study plant biological phenomenon. Written for the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and cutting-edge, Plant Gravitropism: Methods and Protocols, Second Edition serves as an ideal guide for researchers studying the cellular, molecular, and biochemical networks that plants use to translate environmental stimuli into a growth response.

This is the first comprehensive monograph on all emerging topics in plant signaling. The book addresses diverse aspects of signaling at all levels of plant organization. Emphasis is placed on the integrative aspects of signaling.

The eighteenth-century naturalist Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles) argued that plants are animate, living beings and attributed them sensation, movement, and a certain degree of mental activity, emphasizing the continuity between humankind and plant existence. Two centuries later, the understanding of plants as active and communicative organisms has reemerged in such diverse fields as plant neurobiology, philosophical posthumanism, and ecocriticism. The Language of Plants brings together groundbreaking essays from across the disciplines to foster a dialogue between the biological sciences and the humanities and to reconsider our relation to the vegetal world in new ethical and political terms. Viewing plants as sophisticated information-processing organisms with complex communication strategies (they can sense and respond to environmental cues and play an active role in their own survival and reproduction through chemical languages) radically transforms our notion of plants as unresponsive beings, ready to be instrumentally appropriated. By providing multifaceted understandings of plants, informed by the latest developments in evolutionary ecology, the philosophy of biology, and ecocritical theory, The Language of Plants promotes the freedom of imagination necessary for a new ecological awareness and more sustainable interactions with diverse life forms. Contributors: Joni Adamson, Arizona State U; Nancy E. Baker, Sarah Lawrence College; Karen L. F. Houle, U of Guelph; Luce Irigaray, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris; Erin James, U of Idaho; Richard Karban, U of California at Davis; André Kessler, Cornell U; Isabel Kranz, U of Vienna; Michael Marder, U of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU); Timothy Morton, Rice U; Christian Nansen, U of California at Davis; Robert A. Raguso, Cornell U; Catriona Sandilands, York U.

This book provides an overview of the intricacies of plant communication via volatile chemicals. Plants produce an extraordinarily vast array of chemicals, which provide community members with detailed information about the producer’s identity, physiology and phenology. Volatile organic chemicals, either as individual compounds or complex chemical blends, are a communication medium operating between plants and any organism able to detect the compounds and respond. The ecological and evolutionary origins of particular interactions between plants and the greater community have been, and will continue to be, strenuously debated. However, it is clear that chemicals, and particularly volatile chemicals, constitute a medium akin to a linguistic tool. As well as possessing a rich chemical vocabulary, plants are known to detect and respond to chemical cues. These cues can originate from neighbouring plants, or other associated community members. This book begins with chapters on the complexity of chemical messages, provides a broad perspective on a range of ecological interactions mediated by volatile chemicals, and extends to cutting edge developments on the detection of chemicals by plants.

This book provides an in-depth coverage of the most recent developments in the field of wireless underground communications, from both theoretical and practical perspectives. The authors identify technical challenges and discuss recent results related to improvements in wireless underground communications and soil sensing in Internet of Underground Things (IOUT). The book covers both existing network technologies and those currently in development in three major areas of SitS: wireless underground communications, subsurface sensing, and antennas in the soil medium. The authors explore novel applications of Internet of Underground Things in digital agriculture and autonomous irrigation management domains. The book is relevant to wireless researchers, academics, students, and decision agriculture professionals. The contents of the book are arranged in a comprehensive and easily accessible format. Focuses on fundamental issues of wireless underground communication and subsurface sensing; Includes advanced treatment of IOUT custom applications of variable-rate technologies in the field of decision agriculture, and covers protocol design and wireless underground channel modeling; Provides a detailed set of path loss, antenna, and wireless underground channel measurements in various novel Signals in the Soil (SitS) testbed settings.