Study
Towards understanding plant bioacoustics
Gagliano, Monica; Mancuso, Stefano; Robert, Daniel
Trends in Plant Science, 2012
A review arguing that plants both emit and respond to sound, assembling scattered reports of acoustic emission from stems and of growth responses to specific frequencies.
- Studied in
- Plantae
- Sample size
- opinion synthesis of reported acoustic emission and response
The authors argue that acoustic signalling in plants is plausible and under-investigated, and propose it as a research programme rather than an established phenomenon.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Sound may constitute a channel of plant communication deserving systematic study.
How NatureHQ reads it
Included as a marker of where the frontier is, not as support for anything. Ultrasonic emission from drought-stressed stems is real and physically explicable — cavitation in water columns makes noise — and that is a long way from a signal. Reported growth responses to played tones remain poorly replicated. NatureHQ records the area as genuinely open, and treats popular claims that plants "talk" acoustically as unsupported.
- A perspective piece, not primary evidence.
- Emission from cavitation has a mechanical explanation requiring no communicative function.
- Key response experiments have not been robustly replicated.
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Published by: Cell PressPublished in a Cell Press journal.
doi.org/10.1016/j.tplants.2012.03.002
This reference was resolved automatically against Crossref on 2026-08-11.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-08-09.