Study says plants emit sounds when injured

Many turn to plant-based diets to avoid hurting animals for their food. However, a recent study shows that plants can also “scream” due to stress and injury!

Tel Aviv University researchers discovered that plants communicate distress to their surroundings by emitting signals too subtle for human hearing. 

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The sounds change depending on the plant’s problem, such as dehydration or cutting. Consequently, researchers are studying these signals further.

More information about sounds from plants

ScienceAlert reported Tel Aviv University evolutionary biologist Lilach Hadany and his colleagues wanted to know if plants make sounds.

They recorded tobacco and tomato plants in various conditions. First, they recorded unstressed specimens to have a baseline or control group.

Next, they recorded dehydrated samples and others with their stems cut. They recorded in a soundproof acoustic chamber first and then in a normal greenhouse environment. 

Then, they trained an AI algorithm to differentiate between the sounds from unstressed, cut, and dehydrated vegetation.

The researchers found that the last two emitted sounds sounds like popping or clicking noises in a frequency too high-pitched for human ears. 

Cut and dehydrated plants emitted an average of up to 40 clicks per hour depending on the species.

Dehydrated samples had a unique sound profile. It escalates as the plant becomes more parched and subsides as the plant withers away.

However, equipment may detect them within a radius of 3.3 feet or a meter. Conversely, unstressed plants made little noise.

“Even in a quiet field, there are actually sounds that we don’t hear, and those sounds carry information. There are animals that can hear these sounds, so there is the possibility that a lot of acoustic interaction is occurring,” Hadany said.

“Plants interact with insects and other animals all the time, and many of these organisms use sound for communication, so it would be very suboptimal for plants to not use sound at all,” he added.

Researchers are studying how plants make these noises and checking other conditions that may trigger sounds. Also, they want to know whether this ability helps plants survive.