Plant Communication
We share this Earth with numerous other species of the most unique varieties. Some of which we have grown to rely on, some we even owe our very existence. Plants are one of these species that we depend on. They are vital to our survival, producing the very air that we breathe, well the oxygen within it at least! Many moons ago plants evolved onto land from the ocean. There they slowly started shaping the terrestrial and atmospheric environment. Over eons other species began evolving along side them to create the vast ecosystems we see today. Plants are key to our existence on this planet, providing sustenance, shelter, and the air we breathe.
But their lives are quite different from our own. Where we are nomadic they are stationary. Where we are boisterous, they are unyieldingly silent. Where humans communicate with auditory or visual gestures, plants converse in a way wholly invisible to the human eye. Chemicals, scents carried through the air or diffused through the soil, that is how plants communicate.
But there are similarities to plants and us. At the root electrical impulses cascade through both of our systems, triggered by our surroundings. Both of us at the whim of our environments. The rate of these electrical impulse is very different between us though. Where we humans register stimuli almost instantaneously, plants take much, much longer. Think of when you prick your finger, ouch! you feel it immediately, for a plant on the other hand that signal only travels at a rate of a third of an inch per minute. For large plants like trees it might take hours for the plant to respond.
Another difference is how we are adapted to interact with such environments. You and I are equipped with hands containing some of our most sensitive nerves. Ears with fluid used to maintain our balance and actually register the sound waves around us. We have noses enhanced with receptors for scents, some of which happen to be the very same used by plants to communicate with other plants.
We are taught in a way to remember scents, perhaps unconsciously. Or rather is there an underlying purpose to some of our reactions to scents? Take sweetness for one, is it just by chance that we are attracted to fruit? That it smells and tastes delectable? Us animals, bound by the seed within, to sustain ourselves, and the plants in the end. We have learned to be attracted by the scent of fruit because of the expected treat associated with it. When a plant needs an animal to spread its seed, it encompasses it in delicious fruit. Or even spikes that stick to the coats of passing animals and, if your like me, my socks when I walk through tall grass!
Just because plants appears immobile does not make them so. They are quite aware and responsive to their environments. They sense with extremely sensitive receptors all over their being picking up scents and signals from all above and below.
They are able to emit scents of their own to communicate with other plants around them, and some not even of the same species. Some of their signals are more universal, able to be understood by a multitude of individuals. They warn each other of nearby pests and when others hear the call they arm themselves with a chemical arsenal to defend against the incoming predators. One amazing example of this is the Acacia tree in Africa, a prime food choice for the giraffe. Well sometimes that is, when the tree feels the giraffe eating its leaves it emits an extremely bitter compound that makes it leaves quite repulsive to the giraffe. So they move on to eat the leaves of the surrounding trees. Except they make sure to walk far enough away as to graze from the Acacia trees that are not yet bitter. You see the tree emits a scent to the trees immediately around it telling them, Hey! something is eating me, secrete your defense compound and all the trees directly around it will make there leaves bitter too!
Underground they are not idle either. The tips of their roots reach and search through the soil, picking up what available nutrients they find. Here they connect with many, including certain fungi forming a vast mycelial network. This network connects plants underground allowing them to send chemical messages through the fungi and to each other. They tell each other about nutrient pockets and about other insights about their environment.
We may appear so different and disconnected, we communicate through sight and sound while plants communicate through scent, but plants and animals both in their own ways fight to thrive on this planet. Together with different species and our own we work to carve out our existence.
