대기 중 미세먼지가 환경과 인간의 공중 보건에 악영향을 미치고 있다는 사실은 점점 명확해지고 있다. 미세먼지가 식물의 잎에 침착, 흡수되므로 식물이 미세먼지를 제거 하는 바이오필터로 활용하기 위한 연구들이 활발히 진행 되고 있다. 또한, 식물에 흡수된 미세먼지는 식물에 다양한 생리적, 형태적 영향을 미치게 된다. 본 연구는 식물과 미세먼지간의 상호작용에 대해 국내외에서 수행되어온 연구들의 방법과 결과를 특히 생태적 관점에서 종합 정리하였다.

Individual plants can provide space for various herbivore communities, and multiple herbivores often colonize different parts of the same plant. Plants can therefore play an important role in shaping community composition in ecosystems by mediating interactions among herbivore. Plant-mediated interactions among different folivores or between above-and below-ground herbivores are relatively well understood. However, although important for structural support and nutritional transport, the stem is largely unknown in how it responds to stem-feeding herbivores, or whether leaf- and stem-responses to herbivore attack are integrated. Interestingly, I found that JA signaling is also important for resistance to the stem herbivore, and, interestingly, that N. attenuata induced lignin and chlorogenic acid in stems in the face of stem herbivore attack. I also further found that plant inducible defenses in the pith and in the leaf are not systemically induced other tissues, but systemic induction of JA signaling was asymmetric between the stem and the leaf. I conclude that tissue-localized defense responses allow tissue-specialized herbivores to share the same host and occupy different chemical defense niches in the same hostplant.