Every living organism has its own method of communication. A way to transmit messages or send a signal to produce a desired effect. People rely primarily on spoken language, written text, or nonverbal cues. Many animals use body language and pheromones to communicate amongst each other. While scientists have known for decades the ways by which humans and animals communicate, it is only recently that they have gained a better understanding of how plants communicate with each other; specifically trees.
First, two studies from 1983 focused on experiments which showed sugar maples, willow trees, and poplars are able to warn other trees about insect attacks. Apparently, trees can share information through various fungal networks in their roots underground. So when one tree is overrun by pests, it sends chemical signals through the network to other trees. The notified trees then begin to produce pest-repelling chemicals to prevent being ravaged by the bugs. As forest ecologist Dr. Suzanne Simard summarizes it, "When trees are attacked, they increase their defense against the invaders [insects] by upregulating their defense genes to make defense enzymes." In addition to communication through the fungal networks, trees respond to “volatile organic compounds” which are released into the air by other plants when their leaves are chewed by bugs. Detection of these compounds also causes plants to “ramp up their production of chemical weapons” or produce more defense enzymes. An analogy would be if one person got sick but made sure to give everyone else around him the heads up so they don’t get sick too.
It makes you wonder if trees are conscious enough to care about each other or if this is just a phenomenon that occurs instinctively. I think trees and plants have evolved over time to possess a unique awareness of themselves. This allows them to help one another via transmitting signals and causes more of them to survive in conditions which they might not have otherwise. It makes me wonder also if trees then are notified when one of them is cut down by loggers or burned because of a forest fire. If a tree can send a signal that bugs are attacking it, then possibly it could send signals through its roots when it experiences other extreme types of trauma.
The takeaway from this is that too often we are alter our environment without fully understanding the effects we have on the ecosystem and the organisms in it. We pay no mind to what the trees are experiencing, or how our disruption of forests leads to the damaging of the fungal networks underground. As scientists continue to explore plant communication it becomes more evident that there is so much we still do not fully understand about the natural world.
