Across any forest or field, day and night, a silent war is raging. A war for territory – where plants seek nutrients, light, water and a place to live. Even in a monoculture, where one plant species is cultivated, individuals will be competing for resources, when many plant species are resident the fight gets intense.

Plants Seek To Dominate

Within a natural ecosystem, where a large range of organisms are present, then an unimaginably complex battle is at play. Plants use every arsenal at their disposal to dominate or exterminate others in the vicinity.

Chemical attacks via root, stem and foliar secretions, biological and symbiotic or beneficial alliances with microbes, animals and other plants.

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Many Australian natives will shade out undergrowth

Attractive plants are grown and nurtured by humans

Carpet weed attempting to climb up a gum tree

Brightly coloured flowers attract birds and mammals helping to pollinate flowers

These Gazanias have been brought from South Africa and are now common in Australia

Gazania being drought tolerant have become a common weed

This gum has been assisted by spraying competing weeds

Legumes such as Vetch form a dense canopy smothering competing plants

Pines once established have little undergrowth as toxic chemicals in pine needles kill seedlings

She-oaks drop produce toxic needle leaves killing seedlings on the ground

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Stunting The Competitors

Taller species shade the competition; climbers strangle the life out of their host. Succulents greedily suck moisture from their surroundings, stunting the growth of competitors.

Some create a poisonous layer of dead leaves and bark under their canopy, killing or retarding seedlings that are attempting to germinate.

Responding To Climate Conditions

When climatic conditions are favourable, forests will fight back grasslands. After droughts or fires grassland species return.

Over thousands of years and in response to climatic changes, as well as the activities of animals, boundaries ebb and flow between forests, woodlands and grasslands.

Winners And Losers

Plants evolve in response to their competitors and the natural environment. Some become more toxic or unpalatable, others sweet and bright attracting pollinators and seed distributors.

Winners continue to evolve and grow in line with their habitat. Losers desperately hang onto life, waiting for improved conditions, or become extinct.

Changed By Modern Agriculture

Modern agriculture has now changed the order between plants. Many with something to offer man have become spectacular winners. Others such as valuable forest timber species have a dismal future.

Across a field of wheat, plants bask in luxury. Competing plants are ruthlessly eliminated, nutrition is provided while diseases and pests are suppressed. Even the process of evolution is given a push via breeding and genetic manipulation.

Winners Continue To Evolve

Successful species, hybrids and varieties now dominate the farming landscape. Fields of sugarcane, endless tracts of soy beans, cereals and potatoes.

Winners continue to evolve in new ways – inherent disease resistance, growing in hotter or cooler places, flourishing in formerly inhospitable places – all the while gaining new territory.

Are We In Control

Long before humans arrived, plants had established symbiotic relationships with other living things. We are merely the latest in a long string of alliances.

But, who is the greatest beneficiary from these newly created relationships? Have plants got our measure, allowing us to believe we are in control?

Could we be nothing more than the latest pawns in their timeless war?