Scenario of research on allelopathy in Brazil and its potential as a strategy to reduce the use of pesticides that cause environmental pollution: an integrative review / Cenário das pesquisas sobre alelopatia no Brasil e seu potencial como estratégia na diminuição da utilização de pesticidas que provocam poluição ambiental: uma revisão integrativa

Abstract

Allelopathy is a process of direct or indirect effects, beneficial or harmful, from one plant to another, through the production of chemical compounds that are released into the environment. In view of the above, the present study was carried out with the objective of obtaining information from allelopathic researches in Brazil. The bibliographic materials used in this review were obtained from five index databases: Web of Science, Scientific Electronic Library Online (SCIELO), Capes Periodic, Bank of Theses and Google Scholar. The duplicate articles were excluded in each database. All indexed files in the databases between 1940 and 2015 were selected, which included articles, theses and dissertations, in Portuguese, English or Spanish. The review of studies with allelopathy in Brazil evidenced the growth in the number of studies carried out in recent years, as well as the number of research groups certified by the CNPq platform, with an increase of approximately 83% in the first census conducted in 2000 for the last one carried out in 2010. Given the importance of studies on allelopathy and the growing demand for improvements in procedures aimed at environmental sustainability, it is evident that this area tends to grow more and more in the coming years, in all the aspects mentioned above.

Keywords

• allelochemicals
• ecological mechanism
• allelopathic properties