Volatiles released by undamaged plants mediate the adaptive growth strategies in neighbors.

Undamaged Hordeum vulgare plants detect neighbor growth rates via constitutive VOCs, triggering distinct growth and defense responses based on emitter vigor.

• Why it matters: Understanding how plants interpret signals from healthy neighbors is crucial for revealing mechanisms of competitive adaptation and resource allocation in plant communities.
• What they did: The study exposed barley plants to VOCs from cultivars with varying growth rates and analyzed biomass and gene expression changes, identifying cultivar-specific transcriptional shifts.
• The result: Findings show constitutive VOCs serve as reliable cues of neighbor vigor, enabling plants to adaptively reprogram growth and defense, which could inform crop management and ecological models.