LOS ANGELES — When fires rage through forests, they often char acres upon acres of plant life and scar a landscape for years to come.
Some plants have learned to use this destructive force to their advantage — moving into competitors’ now-empty territory or producing seeds that burst open from the heat.
Now researchers have identified another way in which widespread flames benefit some fire-following plant species: A family of chemicals in the smoke makes the plants hypersensitive to lower, altered light levels, triggering them to grow thicker, sturdier stems than they otherwise would have.
The findings were published online Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“People have known for a long time that there’s something (in smoke) that induces seed germination . . . but it’s only in the last five years or so that anybody has been able to isolate a compound that works,” said study editor Winslow Briggs, a biochemist at the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford University.
The findings could have implications for both plant recovery after a fire and commercial farmers.
