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Plant ecology

Family roots

Nature volume 448, pages 145–146 (2007)Cite this article

Experiments in which related and unrelated plants were grown together reveal the ability of roots to recognize their kin. The ecological and evolutionary implications are tantalizing topics for future studies.

Knowing who are your relatives and who are not creates behavioural, ecological and evolutionary opportunities. Organisms capable of recognizing kin can adjust territories, avoid incestuous mating, decide to fight or not and, importantly, benefit evolutionarily from promoting the success of brothers, sisters and cousins — individuals that share their genes. Kin recognition is widespread in animals that recognize relatives by sight, hearing, smell and even taste. Dudley and File1, writing in Biology Letters, now demonstrate that plants can also recognize their family members — through their roots.

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Figure 1: The Great Lakes (or American) sea rocket, Cakile edentula

D.DITCHBURN

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ragan M. Callaway is in the Division of Biological Sciences, University of Montana, Missoula, Montana 59812, USA. ray.callaway@mso.umt.edu,

    Ragan M. Callaway

  2. Bruce E. Mahall is in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA. mahall@lifesci.ucsb.edu,

    Bruce E. Mahall

Authors
  1. Ragan M. Callaway
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  2. Bruce E. Mahall
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Callaway, R., Mahall, B. Family roots. Nature 448, 145–146 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/448145a

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