Abstract

The naturally important hereditary qualities of plant interactionsInteractions among plants have been for some time perceived as a significant power driving plant local area elements and harvest yield. Shockingly, our insight into the natural hereditary qualities related with variety of plant communications stays restricted. The international PLANTCOM network identified four timely questions to advance our understanding of the mechanisms that mediate plant assemblages in this opinion piece written by researchers from complementary fields. We propose that we can improve predictions of genotype-by-genotype-by-environment interactions and modeling of productive and stable plant assemblages in wild habitats and crop fields by identifying the key relationships between phenotypic traits involved in plant–plant interactions and the underlying adaptive genetic and molecular pathways. At the same time, we should take environmental fluctuations into account at a variety of spatial and temporal scales.