Many doesn’t disprove that some do. And it need not be plants; if symbiotic insects pick up on the cue, that’s still interesting.
"There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists"
~ Quote by a forest ranger at Yosemite National Park, on why it is hard to design the perfect garbage bin to keep bears from breaking into it.
As a thought experiment, reverse the question: how could we assume that there aren’t interconnected phenomena after discovering evidence that this phenomena exists?
Even if we never discover what those interconnections are or establish labels for them, interconnection/interdependence is the continuing unfolding of everything, and so I tend to think a more helpful default is to wonder what those interactions are instead of if they exist.
At a minimum, Newton’s 3rd law applies, and however subtle the effects, they are almost certainly there. Where or not they’re particularly interesting to us or “useful” to human inquiry is another question entirely.
The opposite of assuming a thing without direct evidence isn't to assume the negation of that thing without direct evidence. They're two examples of the same mistake.
Rather I’m pointing out that the existence of this phenomena is a form of evidence that opens the door to interrelated phenomena. And based on our understanding of the laws of nature, we can be certain that there is at minimum, some interrelation. Whether that interrelation is interesting or worth labeling as some unique phenomena to humans is what cannot be determined without further discovery/evidence.
I’d agree with your comment if the described phenomena itself was just speculation, but that’s not the case here.
From this article:
> Recently, plants were also demonstrated to respond to sounds,13,28,29,30 e.g., by changing the expression of specific genes,29,30 or by increasing sugar concentration in their nectar.31
So there is enough indirect evidence for hypothesis formation.
The sound emission frequencies are also within the hearing ranges of various animals, some of which are herbivores, and some of which eat herbivores. It would be to their benefit to decode the meaning of plant sounds.
Religion has a cost (lots of resources and time are spent on them) and they have lasted through time, therefore it is evolutionarily beneficial.
A small percentage of the population is psychopaths, this has an obvious cost to communities, but the pattern has lasted through time, therefore has a benefit. Likely it's for war/fighting/hunting.
Growing light sensitive cells has a cost in energy and materials, and has lasted through time, therefore it must have a benefit (sight).
This strongly suggests that SOMETHING is listening to that plant make noise and it either directly or indirectly benefits the plant.
Also, isn't saying a trait exists so it must be beneficial a bit of an over simplification? Couldn't a relatively useless trait hypothetically exist due to genes that are also related to some other relatively useful trait? It seems like a stretch to say any lasting trait must be beneficial, unless you can isolate it from other traits on the genetic level or otherwise through analysis. Traits can also cease being beneficial as we can see from the countless species that have gone extinct.
Sorry if this seems like I'm ranting, but I just need more convincing that this rule of thumb makes sense, and would appreciate being pointed in the right direction if I'm off-base.
The operative descriptive word describing those "useless traits" is cost. If nothing else, they have a cost of the energy and resources required to produce the relevant cells or whatever. Another organism that does not waste that energy and resources will out-compete the one building the useless trait. Natural selection will make it go away.
edit: alternatively, a bad enough trait could completely derail the development of a good train. Maybe dolphins born with 200iq brains develop some other kind of bad trait as a result of the same mutation that doesn't allow for the 200iq trait to permeate.
Any organism we see today may very well have unnecessary traits that evolution is in the process of removing.
It has a benefit to individuals. A benefit to the community is not necessary.
> Likely it's for war/fighting/hunting.
This is a non sequitur.
Nothing is all cost and no benefit, and nothing is all benefit and no cost either. You don't see people arguing that vulnerability to cuckoos is beneficial to the birds they parasitize. The benefit is real (you don't need to bother recognizing your offspring, because recognizing your nest is sufficient) but the cost is so much larger (your children all die) that it's obvious the birds would be better off with the ability to recognize their own young (and/or eggs). They don't have that ability... yet.
While the sounds don’t make themselves, they could be a side effect of something else… instabilities in the structural tissue, the plant straining to increase the movement internal fluids… who knows?
That said, I personally think there is communication between plants, or that at the very least it’s something like trying to mimic predator insect sounds. But could be that the vibrations themselves help move fluids around (as opposed to being a byproduct of something else that does)
>it could be explained as the incomplete or nonexistent development of something that is complex that is beneficial.
If it has a cost but doesn't have a benefit right now, it's going to get weeded out via natural selection in favor of variants of the organism that are not wasting the time and resources on that trait.
But to conclude your conclusion, you must also show that:
- emitting noise has cost (fairly believable)
- and that something listening to it is the only way to make it beneficial, which is far from obvious. (Could just be a way to dissipate energy, or to send signal within the plant, or to get rid of some chemicals, or many other beneficial things that doesn't involve something listening)
Like, a human?
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-whispering...
I’m sympathetic to their argument that we need to be careful how far we take the cooperation argument but I think they’re also throwing out the baby with the bath water. These authors are highly focused on showing the validity of the opposite point of view and so have conducted a meta analysis of the literature that is very, I would say, biased towards the exclusion of studies that show communication and transfers of chemicals between trees using mycorrhizal networks. I still find their meta analysis interesting but would caution people to also take their cutting down of the idea of transfers between plants using mycorrhizal networks with large grains of salt. They, as researchers, are also incentivized to kind of go a bit too far the other way from what they were arguing against (transfers between plants using mycorrhizal networks)
If you hit your tissue hard enough, it becomes blueish for a while (a bruise, a hemorrhage). It may benefit something by accident, but a bruise just can’t stay as pink as the rest of you, due to the physics of the process.
(From tfa) Plants exposed to drought stress have been shown to experience cavitation – a process where air bubbles form, expand and collapse in the xylem, causing vibrations
In other words, dry wood cracks.
How dare you translate academic technobabble to common tongue?
Trees might be screaming/bubble-popping into the abyss for simple physical reasons, but if cavitation is very important to some creature, there’s a decent chance that creature has evolved to sense these vibrations.
Ironically, something I didn't realize until now, and what also confirms the original point: apparently[0] the drumming itself turned into form of communication for woodpeckers.
--
> In other words, dry wood cracks.
I don't think it's saying that at all