Interaction Between Three Different Aromatic Plants With Different Kinship Levels And The Effects On The Release Of Volatile Organic Compounds

In the process of evolution,plant species have evolved many mechanisms for their adapting to the changes of the environments.Kinship interaction and induced chemical resistance may play important roles in plants.However,so far,the relevant research has not been deepened,and many problems have still remained unclear.Based on this background,three types of aromatic plant species,i.e.,Mentha citrate,Mentha spicata and Chrysanthemum coronarium belonging to three kinship levels,were studied focusing on the kinship interaction and induced chemical resistance,concretely,the interactions among the three aromatic plant species with different kinship levels and the influences on their biomass allocation,as well as the influences of such interactions on the releases of volatile organic compounds of the plants and their feedback effects on the neighboring plants.The main results wer as follow:(1)The biomass allocation and plant height of Mentha citrate and Chrysanthemum coronarium were not influenced obviously by the kinship levels between the neighboring plants,which did not suggested that they show significant abilities of kinship recognition.(2)The biomass allocation and plant height of Mentha spicata did not show obvious differences when neighboring with the kin plant belonging to the same species or with Mentha citrate,the plant species belonging to the same genera,but when Mentha spicata neighboring with Chrysanthemum coronarium,the plant species belonging to the different family,Mentha spicata showed obvious trend of competition with Chrysanthemum coronarium,which implied that Mentha spicata tended to identify the neighboring plant belonging to the same species or same genera as "self',but identify the neighboring plant belonging to the different family as "alien".The biomass allocation,root surface area and volume of Mentha spicata tended to show the ability of kin recognition.(3)The VOCs released by the three aromatic plant species were detected and analyzed by GC×GC-TOFMS.More than 1000 chromatographic peaks of VOCs released by each plant were detected,among which the chromatographic peaks of VOCs released by Chrysanthemum coronarium reached the maximum,and more than 2000 chromatographic peaks each sample of C.coronarium were detected.Through comparative analysis on the number and the relative content of VOCs in the different samples under different treatments,the abilities of the three aromatic plant species identifying the VOC signals released by their neighboring plants were found,by which the three aromatic plant species were able to produce so-called induced chemical resistance.The kinship between the mechanically damaged plant and healthy plant could only influenced the release of certain compounds in the healthy plant.With the kinship between the mechanically damaged plant and healthy plant,some compounds relative contents showed the trend of from less to more,however,some compounds showed an opposite trend,moreover,some compounds didn't showed an obvious trend.'What's more,this study found that the same compounds had different performance in different plants.This may due to the fifferences in the ability of the plant to sense damage signals or the time and mechanical of the same compounds produced by different plants.