Chemical Interference: Key Interaction from an Agroecological Perspective

Dear Colleagues,

Understanding how the light and soil resources of nutrients and water are shared and utilized under mixed-crop systems has been gaining increased interest for several decades in temperate and tropical climates. Beyond the competition for access to light and soil nutrients and water resources, interference processes (direct or indirect action of a plant on another plant negatively or positively modifying its growth or survival, development and physiology) also play a key role in soil resource acquisition within multi-species canopies. Those processes may act through allelopathic molecules originating from (i) aerial parts through volatilization or rain leakage, (ii) litter and root decomposition and (iii) root exudation. In addition, these allelochemicals (e.g., alkaloids, glucosinolates, terpenoids, phenylpropanoids, benzoxazinoids) have shown both stimulatory and inhibitory roles in a panel of plant processes such as seed germination, growth, development, reproduction and defense. They target either (directly) plant morphology and physiology or (indirectly) litter and soil biological and chemical processes (such as release of inorganic phosphorus, N mineralization and so on) that will change resources availability. Accordingly, interference needs attention as a disturbing factor affecting soil resources access and sharing within multi-species systems, as does identifying the cation of underlying compounds and the intermediate targets of soil micro-organisms supporting interference.

This Special Issue will focus on how biotic interactions and associated interference processes will modify access to resources. This Special Issue welcomes original papers and reviews related to (i) crop managements that have revealed either favored or reduced access to resources through interference processes as well as (ii) mechanisms that fine-tune the coupling of soil resource supply to plant demand, from the cellular to the individual scale. Any mixed-crop systems are welcome for use in illustrating the interference contribution; from annual intercrop to agro-forestry through the use of cover crops, and so on.

Dr. Philippe Malagoli
Prof. Dr. Christiane Gallet
Guest Editors

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• above- and belowground biotic interactions
• soil resources
• allelopathy
• plant secondary metabolites
• multi-scale approach
• forest and crop system management