Plants Can Hear Pests And Take Defensive Maneuvers
Those Ears Of Corn Might Be Listening To You
Eating a nice, fresh salad in a garden might seem to be a lovely way to spend your lunch break. But all those living plants around you? They can totally hear you chowing down on their brethren leaves and they will HAVE THEIR REVENGE.
Ok, that might be a slight exaggeration.
But a recent study by researchers shows that plants can hear and react to sounds of plant predators. Heidi Appel and Rex Cocroft of the University of Missouri
“Rather than playing plants a sound that is foreign to their natural environment, we approached it from a plant perspective,” Rex Corcroft told AgWeb “What everyday sounds would be relevant? This wasn’t Beethoven’s 5th; this was a chewing herbivore capable of doing a lot of damage to the plant.”