New research has discovered that insects receive soil messages from the past via changes in fungal community and that plants can indeed communicate with each other.
Insects can use plants as 'green phones' for communication with other bugs. A new study now shows that through those same plants insects are also able to leave 'voicemail' messages in the soil. Herbivorous insects store their voicemails via their effects on soil fungi. Researchers from the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) and Wageningen University (WUR) discovered this unique messaging service in the ragwort plant. The influential journal Ecology Letters will soon publish these results.
A few years ago, NIOO scientists discovered that soil-dwelling and aboveground insects are able to communicate with each other using the plant as a telephone. Insects eating plant roots change the chemical composition of the leaves, causing the plant to release volatile signals into the air. This can convince aboveground insects to select another food plant in order to avoid competition and to escape from poisonous defence compounds in the plant. But the impact doesn't stop there.
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