Wild tobacco heeds ‘ouch’ from sagebrush

Field biologists say they’ve found a case of the much-debated possibility that plans of different species communicate in the wild.

When researchers clip sagebrush, nearby tobacco plants seem to boost their defenses and reduce damage from grasshoppers and cutworms, report Richard Karban of the University of California, Davis and his colleagues.  They detected a volatile chemical wafting from wounded safebrush and, perhaps in response, extra defensive chemical in the tobacco, the researchers say in the current OECOLOGICA (vol.