PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Marine Veits
AU  - Itzhak Khait
AU  - Uri Obolski
AU  - Eyal Zinger
AU  - Arjan Boonman
AU  - Aya Goldshtein
AU  - Kfir Saban
AU  - Udi Ben-Dor
AU  - Paz Estlein
AU  - Areej Kabat
AU  - Dor Peretz
AU  - Ittai Ratzersdorfer
AU  - Slava Krylov
AU  - Daniel Chamovitz
AU  - Yuval Sapir
AU  - Yossi Yovel
AU  - Lilach Hadany
TI  - Flowers respond to pollinator sound within minutes by increasing nectar sugar concentration
AID  - 10.1101/507319
DP  - 2018 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 507319
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/12/28/507319.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/12/28/507319.full
AB  - Can plants hear? That is, can they sense airborne sounds and respond to them? Here we show that Oenothera drummondii flowers, exposed to the playback sound of a flying bee or to synthetic sound-signals at similar frequencies, produced sweeter nectar within 3 minutes, 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 the plant’s auditory sensory organ. Both the vibration and the nectar response were frequency-specific: the flowers responded 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. Sensitivity of plants to pollinator sound can affect plant-pollinator interactions in a wide range of ways: Plants could allocate their resources more adequately, focusing on the time of pollinator activity; pollinators would then be better rewarded per time unit; flower shape may be selected for its effect on hearing ability, and not only on signaling; and pollinators may evolve to make sounds that the flowers can hear. Finally, our results suggest that plants may be affected by other sounds as well, including antropogenic ones.