Plants get louder when they are thirsty.
Researchers recorded ultrasonic clicks from dehydrated plants.
Published
Evidence boundaries Solid · Inference · Speculation
A 2023 Cell study recorded airborne ultrasonic sounds from stressed plants.
Plants may contribute more acoustic information to ecosystems than humans notice.
Whether other organisms use these sounds in nature remains open.
A thirsty greenhouse is not silent.
Dehydrated plants produced more ultrasonic clicks than controls.
The recordings carried information about plant condition.
Silence is often a statement about the listener, not the world.
A silent world can be full of signals outside your sensorium.
The study changes the question from “Do stressed plants make airborne sound?” to “Who, if anyone, can use it?” That second question is much harder.
Humans experience silence inside the limits of human hearing. Ecology does not owe us those limits. A signal can be physically real, information-rich and still have no demonstrated receiver in nature.
Think with the idea.
Challenge it
Informative sound is not the same as intentional communication.
Scope boundary.