Flowers respond to pollinator sound within minutes by increasing nectar sugar concentration.

ABSTRACT: Can plants sense natural airborne sounds and respond to them rapidly? We show that Oenothera drummondii flowers, exposed to playback sound of a flying bee or to synthetic sound signals at similar frequencies, produce sweeter nectar within 3 min, potentially increasing the chances of cross pollination. We found that the flowers vibrated mechanically in response to these sounds, suggesting a plausible mechanism where the flower serves as an auditory sensory organ. Both the vibration and the nectar response were frequency-specific: the flowers responded and vibrated to pollinator sounds, but not to higher frequency sound. Our results document for the first time that plants can rapidly respond to pollinator sounds in an ecologically relevant way. Potential implications include plant resource a

SUBMITTER: Veits M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6852653 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature