Chemical Screams and Faulty Intelligence
When plants are bitten, they emit a “chemical scream”, writes Ed Yong. That means they emit chemicals in the air that do one or more of the following: Confuse or repel the pests; Attract wasps or other insects that would attack the predator! Signal other parts of the same plant to ramp up defenses. Sometimes, these signals can spread across entire fields warning other plants in the vicinity. Neat, right? But wait, it gets even more fascinating. The silverleaf whitefly can “hack this communication system”! Somehow, in ways not yet understood: They change the warning signal of the plant to convey the wrong type of threat (microbial v insect). Even better (or worse, depending on whether you are pest or plant), this “faulty intelligence” can then make the plant “ more susceptible to the whiteflies”. And since, as mentioned at the top, the signal percolates to the entire field of plants, the entire field is now ripe for the picking. The field in this misin