Researchers at Tel Aviv University in Israel say there is evidence that plants and insects interact with each other through sound, this research opens up a new field for the study of acoustic communication in nature.
The team tested the“Sounds” of plants.
The research was carried out by the university’s John Arne Riise School of life sciences. The study, published in the journal eLife, shows that female moths can detect ultrasonic distress signals from dehydrated tomato plants and use this information to determine where to lay their eggs.
Moths usually lay their eggs on tomato plants to provide food for the larvae when they hatch. “For the first time, we have uncovered evidence of acoustic interactions between plants and insects,” the team said in a statement. The findings build on previous research by the team, previous studies have shown that plants emit ultrasonic waves when they are stressed.
Although plants emit ultrasonic waves beyond the range of human hearing, many insects and some mammals (such as bats) can receive them. To study the females’ oviposition preferences, the researchers showed them two healthy tomato plants, one with a speaker next to it that played the sound of a dry plant and the other with the sound muted. Female moths prefer silent plants, suggesting that they use these sound cues to determine the best spawning sites.
Further experiments confirmed that the female moth’s selection was specifically guided by sound and only responded to plant sounds. “We found that some animals can understand these sounds. We think this is just the beginning. There may be many animals that respond to different plants,” the team said
The finding could have implications for agriculture and pest control, opening up the possibility of managing crop health and insect behaviour through sound. (translated by Yue Lin)