Animals react to secret sounds from plants, say scientists (Global) 15/July/2025

Описание: Animals react to sounds being made by plants, new research suggests, opening up the possibility that an invisible ecosystem might exist between them.

In the first ever such evidence, a team at Tel Aviv University found that female moths avoided laying their eggs on tomato plants if they made noises they associated with distress, indicating that they may be unhealthy.

The team was the first to show two years ago that plants scream when they are distressed or unhealthy.

The sounds are outside the range of human hearing, but can be perceived by many insects, bats and some mammals.

"This is the first demonstration ever of an animal responding to sounds produced by a plant," said Prof Yossi Yovel of Tel Aviv University.

"This is speculation at this stage, but it could be that all sorts of animals will make decisions based on the sounds they hear from plants, such as whether to pollinate or hide inside them or eat the plant."

The researchers did a series of carefully controlled experiments to ensure that the moths were responding to the sound and not the appearance of the plants.

They will now investigate the sounds different plants make and whether other species make decisions based on them.

"You can think that there could be many complicated interactions, and this is the first step," says Prof Yovel.

Another area of investigation is whether plants can pass information to each other through sound and act in response, such as conserving their water in drought conditions, according to Prof Lilach Hadany, also of Tel Aviv University.

"This is an exciting question," she told BBC News.

"If a plant is stressed the organism most concerned about it is other plants and they can respond in many ways."

There is an "Earthly & human stories (& other human/Earthly creatures/flora stories)" play list on this channel, when its a story about animals and humans crossing paths.

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