It would have been nice to see what particular plants were used in this study. I somehow doubt that all plants react this way. Considering some plants grow under water, others such as sequoias are dependent on fog for their irrigation. Interesting article none the less.
The plants used in this study are Arabidopsis thaliana, which is a very commonly used model organism in plant biology.
I think it's not a particularly wild assumption that a lot of plants will react in this way. The MYC2 protein and jasmonic acid are important regulators of plant defenses so priming of defenses when it rains makes sense. There are pathogens (such as Pseudomonas syringae) that can trick a plant into opening its stomate, which are airholes on the leaves, as a means of gaining access to the interior of the leaf.
As the paper describes how the mechanical action of rain can wash pathogens around the leaf or onto other plants I think it's reasonable to think other plants would react like this.
The interplay between the jasmonic acid pathway and other plant hormone pathways is super interesting as plants, in general, have two ways of defending themselves. For pathogens that feed on dead tissue the name of the game is to keep the cells alive (jasmonic acid can be thought of as generally responsible for this sort of response), whereas for pathogens that feed on live tissue then the plant will kill of cells local to the infection site in order to deny the pathogen food (salicylic acid is largely responsible here).
I still stand by my original comment, it would have been nice to have the type of plant studied included in the article and or in the synopsis of the paid article.
"The plants used in this study are Arabidopsis thaliana" was this information in the story and I just missed it? Or are you making that assumption due to that being a "very commonly used model organism in plant biology"?
The plant image used at the top of the article looks nothing like rock cres but instead more like some sort of hosta or lilly pad, I wonder if the image plant is shaped that way to catch and funnel water away from its roots? Just as a palm does the opposite?
Anyways I could go on, just wish they had included the species in the article.
Checking the article again I got it from the "More Information" box at the bottom of the article. The paper is titled "In vivo evidence for a regulatory role of phosphorylation of Arabidopsis Rubisco activase at the Thr78 site" so that means A. thaliana.
The picture is certainly misleading, I guess they just grabbed a generic "plants in a rainforest" picture for evocative reasons.
I understand the premise of the article and it makes sense, a very common example of this occuring in many gardens would be powdered mildew on squashes and the like. The leaves dont even have to be penetrated in order to damage the plant and rain definitely encourages the spreading from leaf to leaf.
We have plenty of redwoods growing in my country (NZ) that aren't watered by fogs but by just plain ol' rain.
While I'm sure that fogs are essential for redwoods in the California climate, it doesn't mean they are inherently coupled - they grow quite happily in the inland Canterbury Plains, bugger all fog, but enough rain to get them watered.
Fair enough, interesting fact just as all roosters are chickens but not all chickens are roosters, not all redwoods are sequoias. I actually mixed them up too.
