Found this interesting on plant communication.

[Weta]

 

[TinyArt]

Interesting recap of studies in recent years. Makes sense to me that if “warning” VOCs can also attract predators of herbivorous insects, that neighboring plants would “take up the cry” before being attacked themselves — if a whole field shouts, more birds arrive sooner to save the majority from serious damage.

Also, fun to see the imaging now possible, when I once did a high school science fair project on Kirlian Photography — electrifying innocent leaves on top of X-ray film a the darkroom.

 

[TrevorLarsen]

Thanks for sharing. It’s amazing how much we know and how little we know at the same time. I wonder if this will effect how people feel about being vegetarian.

 

[penumbra]

Read Stephan Buhner's (RIP) works on the subject. He did some extensive research in the Sonoran Desert.
I have not seen this video yet but will later. I have been reading about plant communications since the 1970s.

 

[ShadyStump]

I had just started this one yesterday when friends arrived for my 8yo's birthday party.
Looking forward to finishing it. I highly recommend Anton Petrov's channel for anyone who enjoys science updates, especially space stuff. I love him.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Canon has an anual contest called Small World.
To celebrate the microscopy research of the world. It's worth a watch!

There is a documentary out there about the communication between african savannah plants, acacia if memory serves me right, killing off whole herds of grazing animals because in their fenced off terrain all acacias started communicating and producing toxic compounds. The animals had two options: starve and die, or eat toxic plants and die.

 

[Srt8madness]

Canon has an anual contest called Small World.
To celebrate the microscopy research of the world. It's worth a watch!

There is a documentary out there about the communication between african savannah plants, acacia if memory serves me right, killing off whole herds of grazing animals because in their fenced off terrain all acacias started communicating and producing toxic compounds. The animals had two options: starve and die, or eat toxic plants and die.

I guess you could consider that a very simple form of communication, it's more an evolved response to damage. Damaged plants release a gas that when other plants "sense", they also release their toxins.

I mean, when sun touches leaves it creates a biological response in plants, I wouldn't really call that communication from the sun to the plant though.

 

[tigerscott79]

I've seen video where in the sarangetthi the acacia trees emit pheromones and such when giraffes eat them causing the surrounding thorny acacia trees to chemically change enough to alter their flavors to avoid being grazed on . Was really cool. Plants are amazing and so not credited enough to them

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

I mean, when sun touches leaves it creates a biological response in plants, I wouldn't really call that communication from the sun to the plant though.

In biology, especially cell biology, we consider every form of "action and response" a communication. I mean, our muscles work with acetylcholine, but that itself is evoked by chlorine (negative) and potassium, sodium or calcium (positive) potential difference.
Those electrical impulses sound pretty advanced, until you realize that even plant nutrient uptake is essentially the same principle; movement across a membrane based on simple values like -1, +1, -2 and +2, very rarely more than that.

A highly complex protein, responding to a highly complex volatile compound is usually no more complex than lego; if it fits, it fits. Combined, they fit to something else that in turn will shut a process on or off. Naphthalene acetic acid for instance, is not present a whole lot in nature, but it fits most auxin-related proteins and therefore acts as an auxin in most plants. Even though it physically differs a whole lot (it has no nitrogen) from indole-3-butyric acid (different structure) or indole-3-acetic acid (similar structure but different atomic makeup).
Ethylene from bananas can evoke strong responses in cucumbers and other fruits. It involves a whole bunch of cascades with fancy names and it looks super complex when you see those things mapped out. However, if you dive into the chemistry.. It's like: Block A and block /\ seem to fit nicely together, and the /A\ complex fits nicely into the ^ and all three combined form a triangle with four arms at the bottom. Those can hold on to the upper arms of the X and this leaves one position open for another ^ on the bottom of the X. This whole complex can bind to a protein, and once that happens it jumpstarts another cascade.
But in essence, all communication is simple in my view.

If you take a deep dive in the calvin cycle, you might see that there's a bunch of things involved in sun hitting the leaves. The sun is not actively receiving any communication in return, but the plant is sending a number of things out! Oxygen, water, reflected light, refracted light, just to name a few. The sun isn't very receptive to those things, but in a sense, the plant is communicating that it's receiving sunlight; it is sending out signals. Although the message is simple and we don't read much into it.. If we put more light into it, it will put more compounds out. Isn't that much like a conversation? A one sided one, I talk to myself sometimes too.
With a colleague I'm working on a project to see if we can non-invasively identify some kinds of breast cancers that hide better than other cancers, by simply watching what kind of molecules they put out. Once we get a full identification of all the molecules the cancer puts out, the whole process of future identification will be as simple as a plant receiving sunlight: feed the patient X and check if you can find Y.
Pretty cool stuff! But I think it's worth overthinking what we consider complex and simple communication. I believe that it's either simple or complex, depending on how you look at it. However I think it's unfair, unrealistic even, to say that one thing is simple and another is not.

 

[ShadyStump]

I read that comment and started thinking to myself about it as well.

Symbiosis is itself a sort of communication. One organism produces nutrient A which another uses to produce nutrient B for the first. If there's insufficient A, the second organism cannot produce B, so in stead winds up producing C. The first organism then uses C to produce D, and D can trigger A again. This is essentially how lichen functions.

We tend to associate the word, "communication," with understanding, but how many times have you been in a conversation and one or the other of you was actually completely checked out, but still responding so the other felt like they were heard? LoL
There's no awareness of what's going on, just organisms using the available resources to flourish and produce other resources, or just assimilate and react.

I majored in mass communications, and was minoring in psychology. The vast majority of even, "complex," human communication is largely ineffectual on the conscious level. The most effective communication takes place on almost subconscious, and definitely nonverbal levels. An expression on someone's face, or even just their posture, can say as much any words, and often more.
So why wouldn't the notion of plants exchanging chemical signals make for non-communication?

 

[tigerscott79]

In biology, especially cell biology, we consider every form of "action and response" a communication. I mean, our muscles work with acetylcholine, but that itself is evoked by chlorine (negative) and potassium, sodium or calcium (positive) potential difference.
Those electrical impulses sound pretty advanced, until you realize that even plant nutrient uptake is essentially the same principle; movement across a membrane based on simple values like -1, +1, -2 and +2, very rarely more than that.

A highly complex protein, responding to a highly complex volatile compound is usually no more complex than lego; if it fits, it fits. Combined, they fit to something else that in turn will shut a process on or off. Naphthalene acetic acid for instance, is not present a whole lot in nature, but it fits most auxin-related proteins and therefore acts as an auxin in most plants. Even though it physically differs a whole lot (it has no nitrogen) from indole-3-butyric acid (different structure) or indole-3-acetic acid (similar structure but different atomic makeup).
Ethylene from bananas can evoke strong responses in cucumbers and other fruits. It involves a whole bunch of cascades with fancy names and it looks super complex when you see those things mapped out. However, if you dive into the chemistry.. It's like: Block A and block /\ seem to fit nicely together, and the /A\ complex fits nicely into the ^ and all three combined form a triangle with four arms at the bottom. Those can hold on to the upper arms of the X and this leaves one position open for another ^ on the bottom of the X. This whole complex can bind to a protein, and once that happens it jumpstarts another cascade.
But in essence, all communication is simple in my view.

If you take a deep dive in the calvin cycle, you might see that there's a bunch of things involved in sun hitting the leaves. The sun is not actively receiving any communication in return, but the plant is sending a number of things out! Oxygen, water, reflected light, refracted light, just to name a few. The sun isn't very receptive to those things, but in a sense, the plant is communicating that it's receiving sunlight; it is sending out signals. Although the message is simple and we don't read much into it.. If we put more light into it, it will put more compounds out. Isn't that much like a conversation? A one sided one, I talk to myself sometimes too.
With a colleague I'm working on a project to see if we can non-invasively identify some kinds of breast cancers that hide better than other cancers, by simply watching what kind of molecules they put out. Once we get a full identification of all the molecules the cancer puts out, the whole process of future identification will be as simple as a plant receiving sunlight: feed the patient X and check if you can find Y.
Pretty cool stuff! But I think it's worth overthinking what we consider complex and simple communication. I believe that it's either simple or complex, depending on how you look at it. However I think it's unfair, unrealistic even, to say that one thing is simple and another is not.

Definitely agree. One biggest dislikes personally is humans often think we're the greater life forma and focus what we feel is lesser or greater in life. All things living exist feel and respond just because we may not understand thier responses or know what they are saying doesn't mean they aren't there and all. Maybe to literal idk