French Talks: What Plants Talk About

Monday 3 December - 8pm @AFKL

FREE Admission Upon RSVP

[FRENCH TALKS] What Plants Talk About,
by Prof. Soizic Prado (French Chemist of Natural Products and professor at The French National Museum of Natural History)
 

Plants are actively communicating and interacting with each other for instance to warn specific neighbors of possible incoming stress.
Plants also harbor a huge diversity of microorganisms with which they communicate.
These plant -plant or plant-microbes communications are mediated by the production of various small signals either volatiles or diffusible molecules which constitute thus a real language. All these molecular dialogues are dynamics and do strongly impact the plant fitness.
Isolation and structure identification of these compounds as well as their mechanism of action constitute a real challenge for Scientifics.
Indeed, beyond the ecological interests, deciphering this communication could have important impact on various sectors such as agronomics.
What are these chemical signals? Where and when are they produced? Do all plants emit such chemicals? And what happens to other plants and microorganism when they “detect” such compounds?
The lecture will explore these aspects as well as other remarkable issues regarding such “talking” plants.