Abstracts |
Allelochemicals are the chemicals released from donor organisms into the environment and affect growth and development of receiver organisms. Allelochemicals involved in the plant–plant interactions can be classified according to their chemistries: alkaloids, terpenoids, phenolic compounds, benzoxazinoids, glucosinolates and isothiocyanates, and others. Most of these allelochemicals inhibit seed germination and/or seedling growth; some of them show promotive effects such as strigolactones, which trigger seed germination of root parasitic plants.
By contrast, allelochemicals involved in plant–microbe interactions have rather defined roles than those that participate in plant–plant interactions and are categorized on their biological functions as molecular signals to establish symbiotic relationships passed between legumes and leguminous bacteria and between most of terrestrial plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, attractants of motile zoospores or spore germination inducers secreted by host plants of phytopathogenic fungi, self-defensive chemicals in plants and allelochemicals in aquatic ecosystems, and so on. |