Murderous Vegans - Plants know they're being eaten and they don't appreciate it

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Vegetarians and vegans pay heed, new research shows plants know when they’re being eaten. And they don’t like it.

That plants possess an intelligence is not new knowledge, but according to Modern Farmer, a new study from the University of Missouri shows plants can sense when they are being eaten and send out defense mechanisms to try and stop it from happening.

The study was carried out on thale cress or Arabidopsis as it’s known scientifically – that is closely related to broccoli, kale, mustard greens and other siblings of the brassica family and popular for science experiments. It’s commonly used in experiments because it was the first plant to have its genome sequenced, and scientists are intimately familiar with how it works.

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In the study, caterpillars were placed on Arabidopsis, a small flowering plant related to cabbage and mustard.

Using a laser and a tiny piece of reflective material on the leaf of the plant, Cocroft was able to measure the movement of the leaf in response to the chewing caterpillar.

Cocroft and Appel then played back recordings of caterpillar feeding vibrations to one set of plants, but played back only silence to the other set of plants.

When caterpillars later fed on both sets of plants, the researchers found that the plants previously exposed to feeding vibrations produced more mustard oils, a chemical that is unappealing to many caterpillars.

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'Plants have many ways to detect insect attack, but feeding vibrations are likely the fastest way for distant parts of the plant to perceive the attack and begin to increase their defenses,' Cocroft said.

'Caterpillars react to this chemical defense by crawling away, so using vibrations to enhance plant defenses could be useful to agriculture,'

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