Green chatterboxes

Have you heard? Not only people and animals communicate with each other, plants also have a lot to say. We won't easily catch them talking for hours about holidays, the latest gossip and the weather, but they communicate in their own way. Plants are real chatterboxes, and if you listen carefully you might be able to understand them.

When animals, insects or pathogens damage a plant, these plants pass on information to their neighbors about the threatening situation. By means of clicking sounds and floating particles that are spread at times of danger, plants signal to each other that they should be aware. The warned plants then prepare for the coming threat by tightening their defense systems, such as activating toxic chemicals, making them less attractive, or attracting the natural enemy of the animal, insect or pathogen.