Bioacoustics of plants

The communication of plants with their environment is crucial for their survival. Plants are known to use light, odors, and touch to communicate with other organisms, including plants and animals. Yet, acoustic communication is almost unexplored in plants, despite its potential adaptive value. This is the topic of the current talk. We have started exploring plant bioacoustics - what plants hear, and what they “say”. I will describe two major projects: in the first we study plant hearing, testing the responses of flowers to sounds of pollinators; in the second we investigate plant sound emission - we have shown that different species of plants emit brief ultrasonic sounds, especially under stress. Using AI we can interpret these sounds and identify plant species and stress condition from the sounds. Potential implications of these project for plant ecology, evolution and agriculture will be discussed.