Plant-to-plant signaling: building networks for resilience to stress, or merely eavesdropping?

The overall function of an ecosystem is determined by the richness of its biodiversity and the complex interactions formed between the different species that inhabit it. Understanding how global change factors (including climate change), and their combinations, are affecting the intricate species-to-species relationships formed within different ecosystems and agro-ecosystems is becoming therefore increasingly important to our future. Here, we discuss how improved plant-to-plant and plant-to-microbiome signaling, achieved via research, intervention, and altered practices, can be used to form resilient plant communities that will help us shape our environment and successfully address some of our current and future anthropogenically generated critical challenges.