Leaves of three aromatic damaged plant show more sensitive kin recognition than their roots through volatile organic compounds

During the plant evolution process, the important mechanism of plant relatedness interaction and adaptation and induced resistance to environmental change was formed. We used Mentha citrate, Mentha spicata and Chrysanthemum coronarium to set as the kin groups, distant-kin groups and stranger groups three parentage levels. The research of the root isolated and the neighbor identity on aromatic plants vegetative growth and biomass allocation as well as the neighbor identity and plants damaged on the composition and content of volatile organic compounds (VOC) were conducted. In this study, no matter whether the roots were isolated or not, the plant height and aboveground biomass of Mentha citrate, Mentha spicata and Chrysanthemum coronarium did not change significantly with the neighbor plants status, indicating that the growth of aboveground parts of plants was not affected by root secretion of different relationship and volatile compounds produced by aboveground undamaged parts were not enough to allow plants to develop kin recognition. About three kinds of aromatic plants volatile organic compounds, we found that three kinds of aromatic plants without being damaged could receive damage signal and produce inducible resistance, and the strength of the inducible resistance change along with the change of neighbor plant kin relationship. Besides, the closer the kin relationship between the emission and reception plant of the damage signal, the stronger the inducible resistance of the received signal plant. This indicates that the kin relationship between plants can affect the intensity of plant inducible resistance.