Plants can produce and release allelochemicals to interfere with the establishment growth of conspecific interspecific plants. Such allelopathy is an important mediator among plant species in natural managed ecosystems. This review focuses on grasslands forests. Allelopathy drives invasion, exacerbates grassland degradation contributes forest regeneration. Furthermore, autotoxicity (intraspecif...

Because competitive interactions may have led to adaptations enabling bloom-forming phytoplankton to dominate pelagic communities, we explored the allelopathic effects of one red tide dinoflagellate, Karenia brevis, on competing phytoplankton species. Exposure to waterborne compounds from natural K. brevis blooms resulted in growth inhibition or death for four of five co-occurring species teste...

8 Think about your first reaction if you saw a poster at your local pet shop announcing “New Ornamental Plant Kills All Algae in Your Tank Within 24 Hours—Money Back Guarantee!” How much would you be willing to spend on such a plant? Unfortunately, no such plant has yet been identified. But it is a scientific fact that some plants secrete chemicals that are toxic to other plants. Can we use suc...

Activated carbon has become a widely used tool to investigate root-mediated allelopathy of plants, especially in plant invasion biology, because it adsorbs and thereby neutralizes root exudates. Allelopathy has been a controversially debated phenomenon for years, which revived in plant invasion biology as one possible reason for the success of invasive plants. Noxious plant exudates may harm ot...

Chrysanthemoides monilifera subsp. monilifera (boneseed), a weed of national significance in Australia, threatens indigenous species and crop production through allelopathy. We aimed to identify phenolic compounds produced by boneseed and to assess their phytotoxicity on native species. Phenolic compounds in water and methanol extracts, and in decomposed litter-mediated soil leachate were ident...

Plant-plant interference is the combined effect of allelopathy, resource competition, and many other factors. Separating allelopathy from resource competition is almost impossible in natural systems but it is important to evaluate the relative contribution of each of the two mechanisms on plant interference. Research on allelopathy in natural and cultivated plant communities has been hindered i...

Phenolic compounds arise from the shikimic and acetic acid (polyketide) metabolic pathways in plants. They are but one category of the many secondary metabolites implicated in plant allelopathy. Phenolic allelochemicals have been observed in both natural and managed ecosystems, where they cause a number of ecological and economic problems, such as declines in crop yield due to soil sickness, re...