Animals interact with secret sounds of plants, as scientists say

New research indicates that animals interact with the sounds made by plants, and open the possibility of an invisible ecosystem between them.

At the first evidence, a team at the University of Tel Aviv found that the female mites avoided laying eggs on tomato plants if they made uncomfortable sounds, indicating that they may be unhealthy.

The team was the first to appear two years ago that the plants scream when they felt sorrow or unhealthy.

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

“This is the first demonstration ever of an animal that responds to the sounds produced by a factory,” said Professor Yossi Yville of Tel Aviv University.

“These are speculation at this stage, but all kinds of animals may be made decisions based on the sounds they hear from plants, such as whether to be vaccinated, hiding inside or eating the plant.”

The researchers carried out a series of experiences carefully controlled to ensure that the mites respond to the appearance of plants.

They will now investigate the sounds taken by different plants and whether other species make decisions based on them, such as pollination, hiding inside or eating the plant.

“You can think that there may be many complicated interactions, and this is the first step,” says Professor Juvena.

There is another field of investigation, which is whether plants can transfer information to each other through sound and act in response, such as maintaining their water in drought conditions, according to Professor Lilsh Hadani, also from Tel Aviv University.

“This is an exciting question,” she told BBC News.

“If the plant is emphasized that the most worried organism about it is other plants and they can respond in several ways.”

The researchers emphasize that plants are not sensitive. The sounds are produced through the material effects caused by a change in their local circumstances. What today’s discovery shows is that these sounds can be useful for other animals, and possibly plants, able to perceive these sounds.

If this is the case, plants and animals installed the ability to produce and listen to sounds for their mutual interest, according to Professor Hadani.

“Plants can develop to make more sounds or sounds with a louder voice if they are useful for them and animal hearing may develop so that they can take this huge amount of information.

“This is a wide, uncomplicated field – an entire world awaits its discovery.”

In the experiment, the researchers focused on female mites, which usually lay their eggs on tomato plants so that the larvae can feed them as soon as they outperform them.

The assumption was that the mites were looking for the best possible location to lay its eggs – a healthy plant that can properly nurture the larvae. Therefore, when the plant indicates that it is dried and under stress, the question was whether the mites would respond to the warning and avoid laying eggs on it?

The answer was that they did not lay eggs, due to the sound produced by the plants.

The research has been published in Elife Magazine.