🧬Understanding the genetics of plant-plant interactions: a challenge for the future

Why are plant interactions central to ecosystem equilibrium?

While molecular genetics has long focused on the study of isolated plants, the PLANTCOM network advocates an integrative approach: understanding how plants interact with each other at the genetic level is key to sustainable agriculture and ecological resilience.

Plants never live alone. They perceive, react, and adapt according to their neighbors, whether through competition, cooperation, or shared defense. These invisible dialogues—chemical exchanges, root signals, hormonal responses—are now better understood thanks to advances in genomics and transcriptomics.

PLANTCOM researchers are interested in these interactions at different scales: from the laboratory to natural ecosystems and cultivated fields. By combining molecular biology, bioinformatics, and ecophysiology, they seek to identify the genes involved in interplant communication.

These discoveries are paving the way for new agricultural practices: selecting more cooperative varieties, optimizing variety mixtures, and improving resilience to climate stress.

The genetics of plant-plant interactions is a young field, but one with a promising future. By structuring it within PLANTCOM, the international scientific community is giving itself the means to explore a new language of life.