1. Induced changes in plant quality canmediate indirect interactions between herbivores. Although the sequence of attack by different herbivores has been shown to influence plant responses, little is known about how this affects the herbivores themselves. 2. We therefore investigated how induction by the leaf herbivore Spodoptera frugiperda influences resistance of teosinte (Zea mays mexicana) ...

The study, characterization, observation, and quantification of plant root growth and root systems (Rhizometrics) has been and remains an important area of research in all disciplines of plant science. In the horticultural industry, a large portion of the crops grown annually are grown in pot culture. Root growth is a critical component in overall plant performance during production in containe...

Rhizobia colonize their legume hosts by different modes of entry while initiating symbiotic nitrogen fixation. Most legumes are invaded via growing root hairs by the root hair-curl mechanism, which involves epidermal cell responses. However, invasion of a number of tropical legumes happens through fissures at lateral root bases by cortical, intercellular crack entry. In the semiaquatic Sesbania...

A common feature of mycorrhizal observation is the growth of the infection on the plant root as a percent of the infected root or root tip length. Often, this is measured as a logistic curve with an eventual, though usually transient, plateau. It is shown in this paper that the periods of stable percent infection in the mycorrhizal growth cycle correspond to periods where both the plant and myc...

Our understanding of the spatial organization of root diversity in plant communities and of the mechanisms of community assembly has been limited by our ability to identify plants based on root tissue, especially in diverse communities. Here, we test the effectiveness of the plastid gene rbcL, a core plant DNA barcoding marker, for investigating spatial patterns of root diversity, and relate ob...

in order to investigate the effects of plant growth promoting bacteria on growth characteristic of wheat, an experiment was conducted at the research greenhouse, faculty of agriculture, ferdowsi university of mashhad, iran, in year 2009. a completely randomized design based on factorial arrangement (3×6) with three replications was used. the first factor consisted of three cultivars of wheat (c...

A pot experiment using root separation technique was conducted to further understand the effect of root interaction played in intercropping system under different nitrogen levels. The results showed that root interaction and increasing nitrogen application increased the green leaf area per plant and chlorophyll content of soybean, but their effects gradually decreased with increasing nitrogen f...

The present study investigates the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the major bioactive constituents of medicinally important plant Taraxacum officinale in its aqueous and methanol extract of root, stem and flower. Saponins, flavonoids, alkaloids, phenols were highly concentrated in the stem, root and flower, with the higher concentration of flavonoids in the flower extracts. Phenols an...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are widespread soil microorganisms that associate mutualistically with plant hosts. AMF receive photosynthates from the host in return for various benefits. One of such benefits is in the form of enhanced pathogen tolerance. However, this aspect of the symbiosis has been understudied compared to effects on plant growth and its ability to acquire nutrients. Whi...

BACKGROUND We have limited understanding of root foraging responses when plants were simultaneously exposed to nutrient heterogeneity and competition, and our goal was to determine whether and how plants integrate information about nutrients and neighbors in root foraging processes. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS The experiment was conducted in split-containers, wherein half of the roots of s...