Week 4- Bioacustics Research Proposal

Bioacoustics

            There has been much debate upon plants and their senses. Many studies have been conducted to test plant’s ability to communicate, revealing that they are capable of sensing and responding to their environment.  Last semester research proved that plants use fungal networks to transfer messages. With this certainty, curiosity struck to test what other ways plants are speaking. Do plants transmit airborne sounds to communicate with their environment? 

            My mentor Joshua James, knowing my interest in plants behavior, invited me to work on an experiment of his own, to test plants and their auditory characteristics. The experiment I am attempting to duplicate has been modeled after a previously conducted exploration by, Tel-Aviv University in Israel. The intention of the experiment is to place tobacco plants under diverse stressors to assimilate a frequency emission. 

            Nicotiana tabacum (tobacco) is the test subject. The seeds have been planted in pots all under the same conditions. Currently I am awaiting their sprouts to spring so experimentation may begin. Four pots are under observation, one which will receive water restriction, another that will be cut (on the leaves), the third which will be placed in a cold environment (a refrigerator to simulate the conditions of a cold front), and the last a controlled plant which will receive no stress. The controlled will be a basis to test experimental results against. As each plant is stressed, a microphone will be attached to the plant to pick up any sound emissions. Once the recordings have been gathered, the files will be uploaded to Audacity software service to eliminate background noise and graph the sound waves. 

 

Name	I/D/C	Description
Cold Stress	Independent	Plant will be placed in a cold environment to induce audio emission.
Cutting Stress	Independent	Plant will be cut to induce audio emission.
Drought Stress	Independent	Plant will be water deprived to induce audio emission.
Controlled	Controlled	Place will suffer no stress.
Frequency	Dependent	Frequency will be determined by what stress in in effect.

 

In the waiting for the plants to grow, tests have been run to capture noises emitted by other plants, not under stressors. I am researching other listening devices that will allows the best recordings possible. 

            There is simply no doubt that plants emit sound. Sound waves are longitudinal waves, meaning they are transported particle to particle, and that wave travels in the same direction as the medium. This is a unique factor to sound waves because unlike EMR waves they cannot travel through a vacuum. There must be a medium such as air or water for particles to attach to. Sound waves are measured in compressions (when the wave is most compact), or rarefactions (when the wave is most spread out). This implies that sound waves are basically measurements of pressure.  Plants are living and functional organisms. Their vascular system is constantly transporting H₂O throughout, which requires a force for that work. Since plants are matter and have area, this means there must be a quantitative amount of pressure. 

            With confidence there are sounds being ejected by plants. It’s just a matter of tuning our microphones to the correct frequency to apprehend the ejection. 

            Bioacoustics research holds the opportunity to explain a new dimensions of plant communication. Its possible that plants emit frequencies that humans cannot naturally hear, but maybe insects do. This could lead to extreme discoveries at how the environment works together. Such results could benefit agricultural, ecological, environmental, sustainable, and medicinal studies. Bioacoustics could greatly change any game plants are a part of. 

 

Resources

Henderson, T. (2021). Physics tutorial: Sound as a mechanical wave. The Physics Classroom. Retrieved February 8, 2022, from https://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/sound/Lesson-1/Sound-is-a-Mechanical-Wave

NASA, N. A. S. A. (2021). The Science of Sound. NASA. Retrieved February 8, 2022, from https://www.nasa.gov/specials/X59/science-of-sound.html 

Hathcox, K., Marsch, G., & Ward, D. (2021). Physics. Union University. Retrieved February 13, 2022, from https://www.uu.edu/dept/physics/scienceguys/2001Feb.cfm 

Gagliano, M., Mancuso, S., & Robert, D. (2012). Towards understanding plant bioacoustics. Trends in Plant Science, 17(6), 323–325. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tplants.2012.03.002 

Tyson, A., & Patitucci, J. (2020). Introducing plantwave. PlantWave. Retrieved February 18, 2022, from https://www.plantwave.com/home/#how-it-works 

 

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