There is evidence of plant and insect interactions through sound, researchers at Tel Aviv University in Israel said on Tuesday, opening a new frontier in the study of acoustic communication in nature, Reuters reports.
The study, published in the journal eLife, suggests that female moths detect ultrasonic distress signals emitted by dehydrated tomato plants and use this information to decide where to lay their eggs.
Moths usually lay their eggs on tomatoes to provide food for their larvae after they hatch.
The research was led by Rya Seltzer and Guy Zer Eschel in the laboratories of Yossi Yovel and Lila Hadani, professors in the Faculty of Life Sciences at Wise University.
"We have discovered the first evidence of acoustic interaction between a plant and an insect," the team said in a statement.
The findings build on previous research by the group, which found that plants emit ultrasonic sounds when stressed.
The discovery could have implications for agriculture and pest control, opening up possibilities for managing crop health and insect behavior through sound.
Although the ultrasonic sounds emitted by plants are beyond the range of human hearing, they can be heard by many insects and some mammals, such as bats, according to Reuters.
To investigate this preference, the researchers presented female moths with two healthy tomatoes – one with a speaker that played sounds recorded from the drying plant, and one that was silent.
The moths preferred the silent option, suggesting that they use these signals to identify optimal egg-laying sites.
Further experiments confirmed that the moths' choices were guided solely by sound, and only by the sounds of plants.
"Here we saw that there are animals that are capable of understanding these sounds. We think this is just the beginning. So many animals may be responding to different plants," Hadani said.
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