The Secret Scent-based Language of Plants

May 2, 2016 11:38 AM

If you saw the Atlas Obscura "Invisible Worlds" video illustrating The unflinching warfare of the Lima Bean (warning: simplistic animation of wasp larvae infesting caterpillars), you might think that Phaseolus lunatus is unique in its scent-based communication in the plant world. In fact, most if not all plants can communicate with each-other, with insects and other animals through scent. Plants can also time the release of different signals to have different effects.

The evidence for plant communication is only a few decades old, but in that short time it has leapfrogged from electrifying discovery to decisive debunking to resurrection.

And if you were wondering, plants can communicate with each-other in a few other ways, too. For a more in-depth read, here's Plant Communication from Biosemiotic Perspective, from Plant Signaling & Behavior, 2006 Jul-Aug.

posted by filthy light thief (6 comments total)

i want to believe.

This would be an amazing new opportunity to expand Operant Conditioning
posted by rebent at 11:45 AM on May 2, 2016

For both Karban and Heil, the outstanding question is evolutionary: Why should one plant waste energy clueing in its competitors about a danger? They argue that plant communication is a misnomer; it really might just be plant eavesdropping. Rather than using the vascular system to send messages across meters-long distances, maybe plants release volatile chemicals as a faster, smarter way to communicate with themselves — Heil calls it a soliloquy. Other plants can then monitor these puffs of airborne data. Bolstering this theory, most of these chemical signals seem to travel no more than 50 to 100 centimeters, at which range a plant would mostly be signaling itself.

This feels right. Plants that talk to each other? Hm, maybe. Plants that use scents to communicate danger from one part of itself to another, which can be picked up by other plants nearby? Yeah, that seems to work for me.
posted by rebent at 11:53 AM on May 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Plants have also used cross-species odor communication to cause humans to transport plants all over the world.
posted by srboisvert at 12:07 PM on May 2, 2016 [3 favorites]

I wonder how much of the controversy over whether plants can communicate is linked to controversy over what "communication" means. This seems similar to what happened when that Michael Pollan article came out - people have a hard time agreeing what intelligence is, since we've spent so much time associating intelligence with brains.

Whatever the case, plants are cool and I'm all for them.
posted by Dr. Send at 12:30 PM on May 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

In this case, as in so many others, the science has been anticipated by Ursula K LeGuin: The Author of the Acacia Seeds.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:55 AM on May 4, 2016 [2 favorites]

Still waiting on an ansible, though.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:55 AM on May 4, 2016