Glyphosate Weakens Plant Resistance to Stressors
"Plants Warn One
Another of Pest Attack
through Mycorrhizal
Fungal Network"*
• Mycorrhizal fungi form symbiotic
relationships with plants
• Increase mineral uptake
• Redistribute water during drought stress
• Increase tolerance to root and shoot pathogens
• When one plant is infected by aphids, chemical signals are transmitted through fungus network in ground to neighboring plants
• Neighbors release chemicals to repel aphids and attract predatory wasps
• Glyphosate disrupted growth of five species of ectomycorrhizal fungi
tested in vitro**
*ISIS Report 28/10/13, http://www.i-sis.org.uk/mycorrhizae_and_plant_communication.php
** P. Chakravarty and S.S. Sidhu, European Journal of Forest Pathology 17(4-5), 204-210, 1987
“Predators Help Plants Put Away Carbon”*
• Yale University study
• Plants with three conditions in enclosed
environment:
– No predators
– Grasshoppers only
– Grasshoppers and spiders
• Surprisingly, the condition with spiders
resulted in 20% more carbon storage in the
plants compared to the isolated plants and
40% more than the grasshoppers-only case
*A Duhaime-Ross, Scientific American,
September 2013, p. 16.
Glyphosate exposure reduces spiders’ ability to kill
grasshoppers, ants and caterpillars that damage plants