How Plants Talk to Each Other

May 15, 2019

Oak Ridge National Laboratory has highlighted the research of Xavier's Jonathan Morris (Physics) and Kathryn Morris (Biology). Their research looks into the way that plants communicate. It is known that plants communicate via information carrying chemicals that are released into their environment and then detected by nearby plants inducing a response from the second plant. These chemicals are known to move along fungi within the soil, but it is unknown whether the chemicals flow in the water that covers the surface of the fungi, or whether the chemical is transported within the fungi.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory is a federally-funded scientific facility that is world leading in many areas of research. The experiment studies the movement of the chemicals by measuring the neutron radiography images where the infochemical will appear as a shadow in the beam of neutrons. This project is ongoing and the neutron radiography experiment will be performed later this year.

The College of Arts and Sciences has supported Morris and Morris's related research and its publication in the ISME Journal.