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Sounds emitted by plants under stress are airborne and informative
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Re: Sounds emitted by plants under stress are airborne and informative
#92Informative here meaning that you can deduce something about a plant's condition from faint sounds emitted by it. It's not implying that the plants use those sounds for the purpose of transmitting information. From the article: "These results demonstrate the potential in studying plant bioacoustics, suggest that plant acoustic emissions may play an important role in ecology and evolution, and may have direct implicat…
If the signal is being sent, you can be pretty sure that due to the intrinsic efficiency-maximization that biological systems perform then most likely the mechanism for detecting and acting upon it has been evolved by other organisms, especially for something as fitness-critical as stress.
>has been evolved by other organisms
Like, a human?
Re: Sounds emitted by plants under stress are airborne and informative
#93Informative here meaning that you can deduce something about a plant's condition from faint sounds emitted by it. It's not implying that the plants use those sounds for the purpose of transmitting information. From the article: "These results demonstrate the potential in studying plant bioacoustics, suggest that plant acoustic emissions may play an important role in ecology and evolution, and may have direct implicat…
If the signal is being sent, you can be pretty sure that due to the intrinsic efficiency-maximization that biological systems perform then most likely the mechanism for detecting and acting upon it has been evolved by other organisms, especially for something as fitness-critical as stress.
By now, there is at least one other organism that can detect and act upon the signal. If farmers applies knowledge about this signal to improve their yields, plants may be selected for their ability to emit sounds under stress.
Re: Sounds emitted by plants under stress are airborne and informative
#94My very unscientific take is the noises are the result of a mundane mechanical process that is a consequence of the plant not having enough water or loss of water due to cutting, which leads to some cavitation bubbles forming. So it may only be as interesting as saying that your water starts "screaming" when it is being boiled.
You could also describe a human having an appendage chopped off in the same "mundane" mechanical way: loss of fluids, mechanical damage to nerves sending electrical pulses, etc. To some external observer, it's "just" a purely physical process. I'm not sure it's a useful description or perspective. The point here is that although maybe the mechanism here is just a mechanical process (although, what isn't?), the import…
When you cut off a human's appendage, the screaming comes from a voice. The voice comes from a sort of... consciousness. Which while we haven't exactly nailed down what makes one up, we are reasonably certain that it involves a nervous system.
Re: Sounds emitted by plants under stress are airborne and informative
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
A situation the plants evolve specifically to avoid and signal to every other organism in ear shot that the culling is coming Isn’t that enough? My body bloats in a passive process after it stops functioning, I avoid that
While your body would also make noises if someone cut your head off, it's not a process your body evolved to signal everything around it to run.
Its what would happen anyway because its a precursor to more undermining of self-preservation
Re: Sounds emitted by plants under stress are airborne and informative
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
A situation the plants evolve specifically to avoid and signal to every other organism in ear shot that the culling is coming Isn’t that enough? My body bloats in a passive process after it stops functioning, I avoid that
Maybe if the article said other plants could hear or react to the screams. What good would such a warning do for plants who cannot flee or fight back?
That article didn’t, there are others that suggest there are signals to stressors that nearby plants react to.
Even so, I can’t fly away from a tiger or bear. That analogy coupled with seeing that everything that can move, tries to move, makes me think plants would if they could. Sea anemones are very rudimentary and blind systems, and even they uproot themselves and “swim” away in the sloppiest way imaginable when a starfish is detected. Plenty of plants were able to select for defense mechanisms before reproduction. I think all would given the option.
Re: Sounds emitted by plants under stress are airborne and informative
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could also describe a human having an appendage chopped off in the same "mundane" mechanical way: loss of fluids, mechanical damage to nerves sending electrical pulses, etc. To some external observer, it's "just" a purely physical process. I'm not sure it's a useful description or perspective. The point here is that although maybe the mechanism here is just a mechanical process (although, what isn't?), the import…
When you cut off a human's appendage, the screaming comes from a voice. The voice comes from a sort of... consciousness. Which while we haven't exactly nailed down what makes one up, we are reasonably certain that it involves a nervous system .
Plants communicate distress using their own kind of nervous system: Model mustard plant uses the same signals as animals to relay distress
https://www.science.org/content/article/plants-communicate-d...
Re: Sounds emitted by plants under stress are airborne and informative
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the signal is being sent, you can be pretty sure that due to the intrinsic efficiency-maximization that biological systems perform then most likely the mechanism for detecting and acting upon it has been evolved by other organisms, especially for something as fitness-critical as stress.
I like that line of thinking. But I still fail at giving a good explanation of that concept. Maybe it's intuitive for me due to having learned about cellular automata during my youth. I know I'm entering esoteric and new age territory but something tells me this can even be applied to phenomena like quantum entanglement. My idea is that if there is an information receivable and possibly even emittable by a biological…
The rule of thumb in evolutionary biology is if it has a cost and lasts through evolutionary time, it is beneficial. Because otherwise a similar organism that doesn't waste that time/energy on the useless thing/behavior will outcompete. Here's some odd and obvious examples.
Religion has a cost (lots of resources and time are spent on them) and they have lasted through time, therefore it is evolutionarily beneficial.
A small percentage of the population is psychopaths, this has an obvious cost to communities, but the pattern has lasted through time, therefore has a benefit. Likely it's for war/fighting/hunting.
Growing light sensitive cells has a cost in energy and materials, and has lasted through time, therefore it must have a benefit (sight).
This strongly suggests that SOMETHING is listening to that plant make noise and it either directly or indirectly benefits the plant.
Re: Sounds emitted by plants under stress are airborne and informative
#99How about this claim: pieces of string when stressed emit sounds that are picked up by nearby strings. Should be investigate this claim? What does it mean that the world of string acts this way. For those that haven't witnessed it, I will describe a very easily constructed experiment to demonstrate this phenomena that I have discovered: first stretch a string tightly and then quickly flick it with your finger, stress…
Do strings grow on their own and sexually reproduce, though?
Re: Sounds emitted by plants under stress are airborne and informative
#100How about this claim: pieces of string when stressed emit sounds that are picked up by nearby strings. Should be investigate this claim? What does it mean that the world of string acts this way. For those that haven't witnessed it, I will describe a very easily constructed experiment to demonstrate this phenomena that I have discovered: first stretch a string tightly and then quickly flick it with your finger, stress…
Do you mean resonance? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_resonance