Do plants and trees communicate with one another?

Question

If plants and trees can respond to light and sound, does that mean they can communicate with each other also? Are they conscious of their surroundings? Can trees sense other trees being cut down?

Answer 1

We do know that nature is on our side. Fourteen thousand years ago, our Northwest had been swept almost clean by that glacial ice sheet almost a mile thick. Left behind was rock, sand and silt as barren as the moonscape of Mount St. Helens. All that we see has come since then, creating a new Eden.

In my own mind, I feel that there is communiction galore throughout the universe.. between the soil and its microbes, the grasses, the trees, etc but there has not been studies to prove it....

And.. yes, even the soil feels alive because it is. Open your fingers and you are holding more microscopic creatures than there are humans on Earth.

Dig beneath the ground and you'll find more total life, or biomass, than exists on top of it: from worms to fungus to bacteria that have been found in drill holes thousands of feet deep. It is estimated that the amount of living matter under each acre of dirt exceeds the bulk of 10 draft horses.

I feel that in time, it will be proven but not at this time

Answer 2

I'll chime in because there have been no particularly serious answers so far. I've got a scientific background and I'm reading a book about trees - I think the problem is the term communicate - sure they can do - as in talk, think? Then no of course not.

One thing they've been shown to do is communicate that there are predators around (the sender knows because its leaves are being eaten) which sends a message to other trees to put more harsh tasting toxins in their leaves - whats interesting is the effect has been shown to pass upwind - its not entirely clear how they do this but it my be through chemical signals passed along the roots which may overlap.

As for the whole wishy-washy notion that plants have emotions and like classical music. Experiments have been done that prove that just isnt the case at all. I'll recommend the same book I'm halfway through - the secret life of trees by Colin Tudge.

As for trees sensing being cut down, possibly through chemical signals in the air but then theres not much they could do about it is there? They can evolve to make leaves foul tasting when antelopes are about but I dont think they've evolved quickly enough to counteract chain saws.

Regards

Answer 3

Today it is proven that a plant can sense it's surroundings. There have been variuos experiments conducted, when plants are put in a chambers with a dfferent type of music in every room. There are left there for one week and after that there are examined. It was proven that plants that "listened" classical and rock music prospered the most. Other plants were put in a room with techno music, and sounds of explosions or in a room with the name of Hitler constantly being repeated. The plants with techno did not grow as much as the first two, while the plants with sounds of exlposion and Hitler died. Hovewer this directly does not proves that a plant can sense other plants, it simply says that a plant can sense sound waves that move around them.

Answer 4

You know Totoro! My kids love that guy.

The universe is embedded with one energy. Every event affects everything else. Think of gravity. And Bernoulli's principle. And Le Chatelier's principle. There is no such thing as an isolated event.

Are you asking this because of Christmas trees? I think all life forms are aware of their surroundings on one level or another. I don't think they faint when their neighbor tree is felled, but they do compete for air and light.

Answer 5

I don't think they do. If you water a plant and not a tree, the tree may die. If they communicated, the plant would help the tree. That's just nature.

Answer 6

If you go to a field of grass which is about to be mowed you will notice it doesn't have much of a grass smell, but after it is mowed it has a very distictive grass smell.
Yes, I believe plants do communicate, I believe they do it with odours / smells.
But I suspect scientists will tell you this is just nonsense.
One of the fundamental laws of communictation is nobody transmits / sends information unless they expect it to be received and understood.
If this law is true, then why would plants emit odours unless they are expecting the recipient (plant? or animal?) to learn or understand something.

Answer 7

Not at a concious level. When some species of trees are attacked, they release chemicals that will provoke neighbouring trees to increase production of things like tannins.

Answer 8

I guess there may be possible to have some sort of communication in terms of energy? but that's not really consciousness. it would require a brain of some sorts?

i would say they have an awareness of their surrounding from what they can pick up through their roots, leaves etc but i dont think it sits there thinking oh dear, this rain is awfully heavy, i hope my braches dont fall off

if they did, wiping your bottom on loo roll, i wonder if they would anticipate such a terrible fate?

Answer 9

flowers do talk with one yet another, even though if, not on a sentient way and/or with sounds. flowers talk via chemical alerts. ================ the thought flowers talk chemically with one yet another has been around for a pair of many years, even though if this is in undemanding terms been interior the previous couple of years that stable medical info has been accrued to assist the thought. Over 3 seasons spanning 1996 with the aid of 1998, researchers from the college of California in Davis monitored wild tobacco flowers becoming close to sagebrush. They clipped the leaves of most of the sagebrush flowers to mimic the wear brought about via bugs. The sagebrush flowers spoke back with a pant of a chemical referred to as methyl jasmonate. In reaction, tobacco flowers downwind in the present day start up boosting the point of an enzyme referred to as PPO that makes their leaves much less tasty to plant-ingesting bugs. interior of minutes of the clipping of the sagebrush, the flowers' PPO stages quadrupled.

Answer 10

Yeah of course my mate the oak tree is always coming round for tea and i borrow his playstation all the time. Mind you neither of talk to the sproose tree he's a total bastard.