Recent research in plant biology:

Researchers at McMaster University have found that plants get fiercely competitive when forced to share their pot with strangers of the same species, but they’re accommodating when potted with their siblings.

… When plants share their pots, they get competitive and start growing more roots, which allows them to grab water and mineral nutrients before their neighbours get them. It appears, though, that they only do this when sharing a pot with unrelated plants; when they share a pot with family, they don’t increase their root growth. Because differences between groups of strangers and groups of siblings only occurred when they shared a pot, the root interactions may provide a cue for kin recognition.

[McMaster University]

Via Slashdot.

Quorum Sensing

Disclaimer : I’m not a plant biologist. I’m a physical biochemist.

The process of biochemically detecting neighboring organisms is not new. Bacteria use quorum sensing biochemical pathways to “communicate” various things about environment such as population density — molecules are exchanged and recognized in the extracellular environment.

What is interesting here is that presummably there are different signals for siblings and non-siblings. A more interesting result, in my opinion, would be to find the biochemical connection to this selective quorum sensing. The answer could be complicated: it could include libraries of biochemicals (in varying concentrations) and differences in bacterial flora between plants.

[Link]