Breakthrough Discovery Shows That Moths Listen to Plants — and Avoid the Noisy Ones

When a plant is stressed, it doesn’t keep quiet about it. You won’t hear the plant’s cry because it’s in the ultrasonic range — too high-pitched for human ears — but, for decades, scientists have been using special devices to listen in.

For the first time, a team of researchers in Israel has documented that insects can hear and interpret plants’ acoustic distress signals.

This finding builds upon the research group’s prior work recording sounds that tomato and tobacco plants make when they are dehydrated, said lead study author Rya Seltzer, an entomologist and doctoral student in the department of zoology at Tel Aviv University in Israel.

“The prevailing hypothesis is that these sounds are produced as a result of changes in the plant’s water balance within the xylem vessels,” the specialized plant cells that carry water and nutrients upward from the roots to the stem and leaves, Seltzer told CNN in an email.