Acoustic interactions between plants and animals

Abstract

Acoustic communication and reactions to acoustic cues are widespread and intensively studied in animals but have largely been neglected in other organisms such as plants. However, there is growing evidence for acoustic communication in plant-animal interactions. While knowledge about active acoustic signaling in plants (i.e. active sound production) is still in its infancy, research on passive acoustic signaling (i.e. reflection of animal sounds) revealed that bat-dependent plants have adapted to the bats’ echolocation systems by providing acoustic reflectors, which attract mutualistic animal partners. Studies also show that plants are able to perceive sound and thus, potentially can react to animals (e.g., physiologically). Moreover, in the course of evolution plants should become acoustically more attractive to mutualistic animals that find their plant partners based on sound and less conspicuous to parasites. The current challenge is to discover further examples of plants and animals that acoustically interact with each other. Understanding the underlying proximate mechanisms and ultimate causes of acoustic communication will shed light on an underestimated dimension of information transfer between plants and animals.Acoustic communication and reactions to acoustic cues are widespread and intensively studied in animals but have largely been neglected in other organisms such as plants. However, there is growing evidence for acoustic communication in plant-animal interactions. While knowledge about active acoustic signaling in plants (i.e. active sound production) is still in its infancy, research on passive acoustic signaling (i.e. reflection of animal sounds) revealed that bat-dependent plants have adapted to the bats’ echolocation systems by providing acoustic reflectors, which attract mutualistic animal partners. Studies also show that plants are able to perceive sound and thus, potentially can react to animals (e.g., physiologically). Moreover, in the course of evolution plants should become acoustically more attractive to mutualistic animals that find their plant partners based on sound and less conspicuous to parasites. The current challenge is to discover further examples of plants and animals that acoustically ...