Scientists have known for decades that plants talk to each other, but it has always been behind our backs, and, frankly, a lot of your more educated people are not at all confident about how we’re coming off. Less thoughtful folks will think nothing of churning up a swamp with a fat vehicle and a packet of fossil fuel. They are unmoved by botanical trash-talk. But anyone with a heart connected to the biosphere will tend to tread more carefully.
Still, not only do plants gossip, they actively warn each other of trouble on the way. Apparently.
Which strikes me, on the face of it, as just mean. Here are all these plants stuck in the ground and one of them gets nipped by a bug and hollers “Danger! Danger!” and what are all the other plants supposed to do? Just stand around and say “Oh shit?”
Turns out plants can defend themselves against various troubles—being chewed on, being cut, drying out, what have you. And when one is experiencing such trouble, it sends the message out for the rest of them to get ready. It wasn’t known until recently how they do this. Sure, some plants, like strawberries, have runners, but that doesn’t mean they’re galooping across the countryside like Paul Revere. Instead, they release chemical messengers through the air.
It’s called calcium signaling. Plants and people both use ionized calcium to drive processes within their cells. If a mosquito proboscis enters your arm skin and you smack it into a smudge, there’s Ca2+ involved behind the scenes, directing muscles to contract and what-have-you. In a plant, calcium ions might direct the plant to produce toxins. Or they might release compounds into the air to alert nearby birds that they’re under attack by caterpillars (a.k.a. bird snackage).
Sending actionable signals to other plants through the air seems impossible, but I just clicked on the radio in the middle of the Ode to Joy and what blasted into my car from 200 years ago raised all the little hairs on the back of my neck like a waving stand of wheat. They were swaying like a dang chorus. Explain that.
Anyway someone recently modified some plants to make the calcium in them fluoresce, and they were able to see the calcium roaring through the leaves in response to a chemical signal from another plant. This experiment did require them to skoosh another plant and waft its danger fumes around, but this is not considered unethical in the botany world.
And then the as-yet-unharmed recipient plant might gin up an ionized-calcium engine of protection, such as producing a protein that gives insects diarrhea. I know! I was unaware insects could even have diarrhea, although I did suspect them of being able to pass frass gas.
We can sense these chemical messengers also. That wonderful, dreamy summertime fragrance of newly-mown grass loses some of its romance when you realize it’s seven million blades of grass screaming at once. It’s all MAN THE BARRICADES! ALL HANDS ON DECK! FORWARD INTO THE BREACH!
To which the neighboring lawns reply OH, FUCK! HOW, EXACTLY?
That repellent taste they can manufacture to deter munching insects has no apparent effect on a John Deere.
Opened read and shared.
Got a we removed your post for trying to get likes. Bother
Ain’t that something? I suspect it had to do with my come-on that I added to the link: “Plant communicate with each other. What are they saying about us?” Or the like. Apparently that was obvious clickbait. Well, I complained, and they’ll get back to me in a few months. If they let me slide, maybe I’ll share it again!
I know that I’m in the minority, but I never could see how vegetarians could rationalize eschewing eating animals because they’re alive, yet chow down on vegetables… which are also alive.
I try to buy responsibly and ethically raised meat, even though it is costlier than what one would get in the supermarket. Truth is, Paul is more the carnivore, and when eating by myself, I stick to veggies, grains, and fish.
Sometimes plants can be drama queens. I know that plants are more apt to die as a result of over-watering, than under-watering. (Don’t be a Jewish mother to your plants, Jerry Baker always said.) And tomato plants like full sun. Yet on a hot day, in the full sun, they act all wilty and droopy. (I feel like they should each have a fainting couch and smelling salts.) When you feel their soil, it is still wet. And in the evening, they look fine, like they never caused all that drama. (“Who, ME?” they say. “I’m just splendid!”) Thank goodness they only talk to each other. Heaven help us if they ever have access to social media.
Right?
I feel compelled to add there are many really sound reasons to be a vegan or vegetarian. I’m not one, but I have cut way down on my meat.
Although I have not heeded the call, the American presidential pardoning of a couple of turkeys has long struck me as dramatically making the case for vegetarianism (and for elimination of the death penalty).
All that ever makes me think of is the state of my neck.
Oh, dear. Here spouse and I have sat talking right out loud in front of them as to how we plan to prune the hell out of those galloping Euonymuses. Hired assassins will arrive, loppers in hand, intentions all too murderously clear. Shall I feel bad, then — or, er, how should one feel? Do I dare to eat a peach?
As long as you keep your trousers rolled!
I just now had a conversation with my husband, saying, that when he chops off the top half of his newly purchased oak to form it into a bonsai, he needed to let it know that it was experiencing a tornado, rather than a bonsai initiation. Seriously. They know.
I don’t know why it only just occurred to me how much bonsai reminds me of foot binding.
I’ve wondered before if that lovely smell of fresh-cut grass smells like a blood bath to the grass. Not a nice thought.
I now wonder if enjoying the smell of cut grass is a form of schadenfreude.
If I understand correctly, Jains will eat only vegetation that can be eaten without killing the plant, as in cutting the tops off — so, no root vegetables, ever.
No beets works for me.
At least two seasons of the year, my body is sure the area vegetation is getting even. I have no scientific evidence that allergies are up in humans – maybe they are only up in me – but I wouldn’t put it beyond any of the exuberantly abundant biomass of the NC Piedmont to figure out how to drive the locals around the bend for half a year, or to improve on last year’s effect significantly.
I feel so sorry for you! I’ve never so suffered. Very lucky girl, here.
Poor plants, not only do they have to defend themselves against insects, fungi, chipmunks, rabbits, deer, fertilizer, ect…. but then there’s the dogs and cats too…
…some of which do quite a bit of fertilizing in my yard…