A Stimarium Dossier
Thirsty plants click more often
Tomato and tobacco plants make clicking sounds too high-pitched for human ears. Plants short of water click far more often than watered ones, and researchers could tell a plant’s condition from its clicks alone.
What’s known, what’s not: Known, Our read, OpenA thirsty tomato seedling in a clay pot on dark stone. A small microphone on a short stand points at it, switched off, its cable coiled with the plug lying loose.
About this video
Tomato and tobacco plants make clicking sounds too high-pitched for human ears. Plants short of water click far more often than watered ones, and researchers could tell a plant's condition from its clicks alone. Nobody knows yet what makes the clicks, and whether any animal or plant uses these sounds in nature remains open.
We think plants may contribute more acoustic information to ecosystems than humans notice.
Source: Khait, I., Lewin-Epstein, O., Sharon, R., Saban, K., Goldstein, R., Anikster, Y., Zeron, Y., Agassy, C., Nizan, S., Sharabi, G., Perelman, R., Boonman, A., Sade, N., Yovel, Y., & Hadany, L. (2023). Sounds emitted by plants under stress are airborne and informative. Cell, 186(7), 1328–1336.e10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2023.03.009
The clicks shown on screen are an illustration made for this video.
Narration: synthetic voice (Kokoro af_heart, Apache-2.0). Artwork: Stimarium.
A thirsty greenhouse is not silent.
Dehydrated plants produced more ultrasonic clicks than watered plants.
The recordings carried information about plant condition.
Plants make sounds beyond human hearing
The study answers one question, whether stressed plants make airborne sound, and leaves a harder one: who, if anyone, can use it?
Humans experience silence inside the limits of human hearing, and other organisms are not bound by those limits. A signal can be physically real and information-rich and still have no demonstrated receiver in nature. In a 2026 lab arena, female moths changed where they laid eggs in response to recorded clicks of thirsty tomato plants, and deafened moths did not. [S03]
Think with the idea.
Challenge it
Informative sound is not the same as intentional communication.
Scope boundary.What’s known, what’s not
↑ Back to where you wereA 2023 Cell study recorded airborne ultrasonic sounds, pitched above the range of human hearing, from tomato and tobacco plants that were dehydrated or had cut stems.
Plants may contribute more acoustic information to ecosystems than humans notice.
What makes the clicks remains uncertain; the researchers suggest air bubbles forming and bursting in the plant’s water-carrying tissue. A 2026 lab study found that female moths changed where they laid eggs in response to recorded clicks; whether any animal or plant uses these sounds in the wild remains open.
What the three labels meanClose explanations
Known marks what the cited evidence directly supports, including what named researchers argue.
Our read is Stimarium’s own interpretation of that evidence.
Open marks a question the cited evidence can’t answer yet, or a possibility we are raising ourselves.