Multimodal Plant-Animal Communication: Signaling Mechanisms, Coevolution, and Environmental Disruption

Plant-animal communication involves diverse forms of information transfer that can mediate ecologically important interactions, including pollination, seed dispersal, herbivory, and plant defense. This review synthesizes current knowledge of the chemical, visual, gustatory, electrical, acoustic, and vibrational information involved in these interactions, with particular emphasis on volatile organic compounds, herbivore-derived elicitors and effectors, multimodal signaling, sensory perception, learning, and evolutionary processes, including coevolution where reciprocal evidence is available. A central distinction is made between detectable traits or cues and functional biological signals, emphasizing the need for evidence linking signal production or modification to receiver detection, behavioral or physiological responses, and ecologically meaningful outcomes. Acoustic and vibrational phenomena are considered critically because their communicative significance remains less firmly established than that of chemical and visual signaling. The review further examines how climate change and other anthropogenic pressures may alter signal production, transmission, perception, and phenological synchrony, thereby reorganizing plant-animal interactions. Genetic manipulation of hormonal, volatile, and specialized-metabolite pathways is also evaluated as a potential tool for modifying plant signaling, together with its possible unintended ecological consequences. By integrating plant physiology, sensory ecology, animal behavior, evolution, and environmental change, this review identifies major evidence gaps and highlights the importance of plant-animal communication for biodiversity conservation, pollination, biological control, and sustainable agriculture.