Baxter Black Was Right - Study: Plants Don’t Like Being Eaten

Most people don't give a second thought when tucking into a plate of salad. But perhaps we should be a bit more considerate when chomping on lettuce, as scientists have found that plants actually respond defensively to the sounds of themselves being eaten. In the study, caterpillars were placed on Arabidopsis, a small flowering plant related to cabbage and mustard. Using a laser and a tiny piece of reflective material on the leaf of the plant, Cocroft was able to measure the movement of the leaf in response to the chewing caterpillar. Cocroft and Appel then played back recordings of caterpillar feeding vibrations to one set of plants, but played back only silence to the other set of plants. When caterpillars later fed on both sets of plants, the researchers found that the plants previously exposed to feeding vibrations produced more mustard oils, a chemical that is unappealing to many caterpillars. ‘What is remarkable is that the plants exposed to different vibrations, including those made by a gentle wind or different insect sounds that share some acoustic features with caterpillar feeding vibrations did not increase their chemical defenses,’ Cocroft said. 'This research also opens the window of plant behavior a little wider, showing that plants have many of the same responses to outside influences that animals do, even though the responses look different.' The study, 'Plants respond to leaf vibrations caused by insect herbivore chewing,' was funded in part by the National Science Foundation and was published in Oecologia...more  HT: Moonbattery

Can you hear them screaming?

Baxter Black educated us on this topic over 25 years ago.  Here's his classic presentation on the Johnny Carson Show


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zfzT7QfLZc&feature=share&list=PL35757F809A6F6F29