Autotoxicity: Concept, organisms, and ecological significance

The present review deals with the phenomenon of autotoxicity - a type of in traspecific allelopathy, where a plant species inhibits the growth of its o wn kind through the release of toxic chemicals into the environment. This p henomenon has been reported to occur in a number of weeds and crop plants i n agroecosystem and wastelands causing the soil sickness. Besides, it plays a significant role in the orchards (of apple, pear, grapes, etc.) where it is the major reason of the replant problem, natural forests and coffee and tea plantations causing the regeneration problems. Not only the higher pla nts, but even some ferns and algae are also reported to show this phenomeno n. Some plants have even developed extensive mechanisms to overcome this ph enomenon, whereas the others have adapted to it by making structural and ec ological changes providing to them a competitive ecological advantage over the others. Although autotoxicity is a natural phenomena providing selectiv e benefit to the plant, yet the chemicals responsible for this have good po tential for weed and pest management.