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Chapter 1: What philosophical question does the episode start with about trees?
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If a tree falls in a forest and no one's there to hear it, does it make a sound? Now that philosophical classic implies that if there are no human ears to perceive the sound, then maybe it never existed. But what about the trees on either side of the one that fell over? Or the ferns in the understory? As it turns out, they might be able to hear everything as well.
This is Lab Notes from ABC Radio National. I'm Jonathan Webb, and today I'm speaking to Dr Samart, who is a research fellow and molecular biologist at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, and he studies how plants perceive our world. Hi, Samart. Hello, Jonathan. Kia ora. Kia ora.
Now, I know some people say that you should speak to your plants or sing to your plants to encourage them to grow. Do you play music or stimulate your garden in any such way?
Unfortunately, no. In my garden, I don't have any speakers installed because I'm currently also renting. So I haven't got that opportunity, but maybe in the future, surely. But if not in my garden, but I do try to play some music to plants in my lab. How do we know that plants can hear?
So there are a bunch of experiments that have been done by scientists previously stating that when you expose plants to different sound vibrations, whether different frequencies or for different longer versions or different amplitude, they do induce certain physiological changes. And that's how it was perceived that they do respond in one way. But then researchers started looking at
the molecular changes that happen when you expose the plants to sound compared to plants which haven't received any sound. And they saw there was, particularly when you expose plants to really sort of sound waves, which are ultrasonic, they tend to perceive it as sort of a stress signal and they start to produce compounds that fight against that stress. Right.
So they seem to have evolved a way to process the sound and respond to their environment in a way that might help them. Yes. Do we know that that is hearing rather than feeling? Because different sound vibrations would effectively shake the plants as well, or is it all kind of the same thing as far as plant sensation is concerned?
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Chapter 2: How do plants perceive sound and vibrations?
So there are other hypotheses as well, for surely, that we have been looking at. So one of them is having these specific calcium channels. So if I provide an analogy to it, in our nerve cells, we have channels that induces calcium and voltage-gated channels that releases some of the hormones. Similarly, plants have similar channels, ion channels.
So if you have calcium ion channels, for example, and they respond, they also respond to pressure changes. So if that can initiate or induce calcium leaching or calcium ion movements, that can also start some of the signaling physiological processes. So that's another hypothesis that we have been working on here at University of Canterbury.
This is a big question to ask someone for whom this is their area of study, Samant. But why does it matter to us to understand whether and how plants can hear things?
That's a very good question and I would say very important for us as well. If you can let plants know that there is a stress that's coming in one way or the other, they can prepare for an upcoming danger. For example, with climate change, if there's a way that we can prime the plants or we can tell the plant
that, look, there's going to be a stressful event a day or in a two or three, and you can prepare for it, certainly increasing their efficiency not to survive but grow better in that sort of extreme conditions and the condition in which they wouldn't normally would survive. Wouldn't that be wonderful?
That is an interesting idea, to harness these powers to kind of proactively warn and arm plants against difficult conditions ahead. Yeah. The other thing that we hear about is trying to get plants to grow better by playing them sounds that they like. Is that a realistic opportunity?
Definitely, it's possible. Not saying that any specific sound would work, but there are still studies going on, and I'm working on defining those frequencies that can help plants grow better. quite widely the ultrasonic range. So some that we can't really hear.
So much, much higher pitched than stereo.
Yes, something like that.
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Chapter 3: What experiments demonstrate that plants can hear?
Why are you interested in the senses of plants, Samarth? What keeps you coming back to work?
the more I have looked into plants, the more I have gone fascinated with how they really interact and how they're underappreciated, I would say. I think that fascination has always made me curious, saying that when I talk specifically about hearing sounds. I'm also a DJ, so I do DJing in my free time. And I think that was sort of a perfect opportunity for me to actually look at
how sound and plants, two of my passionate things, can be joined together.
Have you ever brought plants along to a DJ gig or have you taken your decks into the greenhouse? That is definitely on the cards for sure. At least I would have a constant audience. They can't run away. And from what you tell me, Samath, they might hate it, but they probably will respond. They may well hear it. Yes, and they will respond and I might see them two days later not liking it.
Samat, thank you so much for sharing your lab notes with me. Thank you, Jonathan.
Thank you for having me.
That was Dr. Samat from the University of Canterbury. This episode of Lab Notes was made on Gadigal and Ngunnawal and Ngambri country. It was produced by Amy Briggs and I'm Jonathan Webb. I'll catch you next week.
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