United we stand: Plants that physically touch each other are more resilient to stress.

These are thought to support the overall health and resilience of plant communities, but could also reflect eavesdropping between plants, used for competition. Here we reveal that plants that physically touch each other aboveground are more resilient to stress, and that this phenomenon is dependent on the ability of plants to exchange systemic electric, calcium, and reactive oxygen species (ROS) signals between them.

We further separate electric- from calcium/ROS plant-to-plant systemic signals and show that the function of certain calcium/ROS-dependent transcripts is required for stress acclimation. Our study reveals that plants living in a community can support each other, enhancing the overall resilience of the community to stress.