Victoria Salemme. Evolution: One Way A Plant Protects Itself: By 'Listening'

Summary

       Recent studies done by researchers at the University of Missouri suggest that overtime, plants have evolved to have the ability to hear. They ran a series of tests using two sets of plants. The first set was placed in a room with the sound of caterpillars eating, while the second set of plants was placed in a room that was completely silent. When the two sets of plants were later exposed to living caterpillars, the first set that had been listening to the caterpillar sounds created more of the natural chemical that repels the caterpillars at a faster rate than the set of plants that had been placed in a silent room. They also ran a series of tests with different sets of plants to see if the responded differently to atmospheric and predator sounds. They did. The plants did not produce the repelling chemical at a faster rate when they listened to the atmospheric sounds, but the other plant set did respond like the first set of plants in the first experiment when they were exposed to the sounds of predators. Past studies have also shown that there are two genes in rice that turn "on" when they heard music and clear tones, and corn roots lean towards specific vibration frequencies when detected. Researchers are still trying to figure out why plants evolved to have this trait, and what gives them the ability to detect the sounds and vibrations.

Relevance:

   This relates to our most recent unit about evolution because overtime, the plants with the trait to allow them to hear and detect vibrations have become more frequent, most likely due to the process of Natural Selection. The offspring that inherited and expressed the gene(s) that allows the abilities most likely had a higher survival rate, and have become more common since then.

Source Citation
Quenqua, Douglas. "Evolution: One Way a Plant Protects Itself: By 'Listening'." New York Times 8 July 2014: D2(L). Science in Context. Web. 7 Jan. 2015.

Document URL
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Gale Document Number: GALE|A374043638