It is already known that plants can communicate through chemicals, but new research shows that they can still communicate when all routes are blocked except sound.
Researchers believe they may be detecting tiny oscillations within nearby plant cells, in effect hearing and talking to each other through sound.
As keen gardeners may know, chili seeds grow better near basil plants. Researchers at the University of Western Australia found that even when all forms of contact are blocked—such as physical contact, light signals, chemical contact—the chili seeds still have a higher germination rate when near to basil plants.
The research, carried out by Monica Gagliano and Michael Renton, was published in the the journal BMC Ecology.
Dr. Gagliano said that the results showed plants are able to positively influence growth of seeds by a currently unknown mechanism.
“Bad neighbors, such as fennel, prevent chili seed germination in the same way,” she said in a statement. “We believe that the answer may involve acoustic signals generated using nanomechanical oscillations from inside the cell which allow rapid communication between nearby plants.”
The research article concludes: “We have previously suggested that acoustic signals may offer such a mechanism for mediating plant-plant relationships and proposed that the such signals may be generated in plants by biochemical processes within the cell, where nanomechanical oscillations of various components in the cytoskeleton can produce a spectrum of vibrations. The present findings further support the hypothesis of acoustic communication.”
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