A new study revealed that many species of trees and plants can communicate with each other to send warnings of upcoming dangers, according to the American newspaper "The Washington Post." The study found that plants "infested with pests emit certain chemical compounds, which can reach the internal tissues of healthy plants, thereby activating defenses within their cells." According to the researchers of the study published in the journal "Nature Communications," a better understanding of this mechanism could help scientists and farmers "fortify plants against insect attacks or drought long before they occur."
The lead author of the study, Masatsugo Toyota, stated that "this study represents the first time researchers have been able to conceive of communication among plants to warn of threats from insects, pests, or environmental dangers such as drought." This type of research highlighting "plant communication" began in the 1980s when two ecologists placed "hundreds of caterpillars and worms on willow tree branches to observe how the trees responded." The trees started to "produce chemicals that made their leaves unappetizing and indigestible to deter insects."
However, what is even more intriguing is that "healthy trees of the same species, located 30 or 40 meters away and having no root connections to the damaged trees, had prepared the same chemical defenses in anticipation of any potential insect invasion."
