Appel and Cocroft (2014) published a paper in which title they claimed that “plants respond to leaf vibrations caused by insect herbivore chewing”. In their study, the plant defence mechanism (production of toxins) which is normally activated by the feeding caterpillars, could also be activated by appropriate application of acoustic vibration directly to a leaf. That means that the acoustic vibrations are either directly transmitted through the leaf tissue or (even more interesting) are transmitted through the air and detected by plant “ears” (antenneas). If the latter is true, plants could “hear” if a neighbour plant is attacked, just by detecting the chewing sound waves of the caterpillars. Is that possible? “Yes it is possible” says the paper from Shaobao Liu et al. (2017). They analyzed if the Arabidopsis trichomes (hair cells) which has several mechanosensory functions, could additionally work as acoustic detectors. For that they analyzed geometry, mass and stiffness of the trichomes and showed theoretically that their primary modal frequencies would be able to resonate when exposed to acoustic waves with the frequencies similar to chewing caterpillar. In easy words: theoretically the trichomes could work like ears for the plant and detect chewing sounds. "Arabidopsis Leaf Trichomes as Acoustic Antennae."
Liu, Shaobao, et al. Biophysical Journal 113.9 (2017): 2068-2076.
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