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Study

Communication between plants: induced resistance in wild tobacco plants following clipping of neighboring sagebrush

Karban, Richard; Baldwin, Ian T.; Baxter, Kevin J.; Laue, Grit; Felton, Gary W.

Oecologia, 2000

Peer-reviewedfield experimentwild

What they did

Sagebrush plants growing naturally in the Great Basin were experimentally clipped, and the herbivore damage subsequently sustained by neighbouring wild tobacco plants was compared with tobacco beside unclipped sagebrush. Air contact was manipulated separately from root contact.

Studied in
Nicotiana attenuata, Artemisia tridentata
Sample size
wild tobacco plants beside clipped and unclipped sagebrush

What they found

Tobacco plants near clipped sagebrush suffered significantly less herbivore damage over the season, and the effect travelled through the air rather than through soil or root contact.

What it means

The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.

How the authors put it

Volatile cues released by damaged sagebrush induce resistance in an unrelated neighbouring species under field conditions.

How NatureHQ reads it

This is the study that moved plant-to-plant signalling from a contested laboratory curiosity to a field phenomenon, and the design is why. It happens outdoors, at natural spacing, with damage measured over a season rather than chemistry measured in a chamber, and it separates the airborne route from the soil route. Note the word "eavesdropping": sagebrush is not plausibly signalling *to* tobacco, and a plant that overhears a cue is not being spoken to.

Limitations

  • Two species in one arid system; the effect is not universal across plant communities.
  • The specific volatile compounds are not fully identified here.
  • Clipping is a crude proxy for insect damage and releases compounds differently.

The experiment, explained

  • Clipping sagebrush to see if the neighbours notice

    Plant-to-plant signalling had been shown in sealed laboratory chambers and dismissed as an artefact. Does it happen outdoors, at natural spacing, in a real season?

What this study is used for on NatureHQ

One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.

Finding the paper

Published by: Springer journalsPublished in a Springer journal.

doi.org/10.1007/pl00008892

This reference was resolved automatically against Crossref on 2026-08-11.

NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-08-09.