this is an example of such a manipulation we did on tomato sounds that we recorded [Music] and these are sounds that were recorded from grapevines and manipulated in the same manner joining us now is Professor Lila khadani from the school of plant Sciences sciences and food security at Tel Aviv University joining us from Tel Aviv and Professor adani this is truly fascinating first of all just tell us the Genesis of this project I mean is this something scientists suspected that plants can somehow make sounds and even communicate um there are two levels we know that
plants communicate plants communicate in different ways they communicate through volunteers through saying of each other through chemicals but the topic of um plant bioacoustics plants emitting sounds all plants responding to sounds uh was um completely unknown till uh quite recently and we arrived to it from The evolutionary perspective because acoustic communication could be really useful for plants first they are there are plenty of animals around animals that make sounds and respond to sounds so if plants would have used acoustic communication I think there would be someone to interact with and so a few years ago
we've shown that their flowers respond to the sound of pollinators but in this war right we show that plants emit sounds right ultrasonic sounds especially when stressed and that the sounds contain information that you're jumping to my next question we heard those clickings what is it is that do we know what they're saying is that like a kind of Morse code Type Thing so we can identify the condition of the plant is the plant cut or drive is it a little dry or very dry what and what type of plant we have like is it
tomato or tobacco according to the Suns but that doesn't yet say that the sounds are used for communication this is still an open question now we know that they emit sounds that we can record the sounds from a distance they're out there in the air but we don't know yet who is listening animal and possibly other plants could it be could is it possible and I'm just speculating because there's always been a lot of theorizing why for example certain insects go to certain plants imagine plants communicate visually to bees and insects could sounds be a
part of it even an inter-species communication I would definitely think so so I mean we know that there are certain animals that can hear these sounds and the sounds are way out of our frequency they are between 70 and 80 kilohertz but there are animals and most deaths mice that can hear them do this animals use the sounds to decide what to do for example which plant to lay eggs on right let me ask you there's been a lot of discussion about uh the questions about the plants feel pain as we understand it or distress
as you say and that even goes into the whole subject of people eating plants and the what the what condition does that change to know that plants maybe can actually communicate I would say verb I mean through sounds let's say I think that our work does not change we know just plants communicate that this work at a higher level their assumption is if they're doing it through some kind of auditory that that's almost like a higher level of intelligence than maybe we thought of plants having used by the plant for communication it might be a
side effect of other processes of stress in the plant but even if this is the case the sounds are out there and contain information so other organisms may be using them right is that the next step in new in the research to find out exactly what those sounds are like in what kind of communication they are exactly so within a few years we hope to have an answer for that all right well who knows maybe one day we'll be maybe we'll be able to communicate back uh to to our plans uh and really change the
way that uh we think about it uh it's really fascinating Professor lilac hadani of Tel Aviv University thank you for joining us on I-24 news
