Dear colleagues,

Microbial volatile compounds are a very diverse group of metabolites that volatilize at room temperature. They can act as molecular signals in the communication among microorganisms and even as inter-kingdom signals in the communication between microorganisms and their hosts. Bacteria have coevolved with plants, establishing close relationships that may be beneficial or harmful to these plants. Associated microorganisms have been considered complementary to the plant genome and it has even been conceptualized that they compose with plants a meta-organism, emphasizing the importance of the microbiome for the correct functioning of the plant–microbe system. In this way, in plants, several bacterial volatile compounds alter plant gene expression, signaling transduction vies, and plant physiology, ultimately affecting plant growth.

Despite the valuable and growing information published in recent years, there remain challenges and important questions to resolve. These include topics related to new plant growth, inducing microbial volatiles, plant sensing systems of microbial volatiles, interactions of microbial volatile compounds with phytoregulators and signaling vies involved, mechanisms of action of microbial volatiles on plant growth, ecological or physiological relevance of plant growth inducing microbial volatiles, new experimental approaches to the topic, and new strategies to employ microbial volatiles in plant production. This Special Issues focuses on all these topics.

Dr. Eduardo Valencia-Cantero
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Plants is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Plant-growth inducing microbial volatile compounds
• Volatile organic compounds (VOCs)
• Plant–microbe Interactions
• Plant receptors of microbial volatile compounds
• Phytoregulator–microbial volatile compounds interactions
• Microbial volatile compounds in plant production