Overview

• Dehydrated tomato plants under water stress emit high-frequency ultrasonic clicks outside the range of human hearing.
• In lab trials, female Egyptian cotton leafworm moths avoided tomato plants playing recorded distress sounds and chose silent healthy plants for laying eggs.
• This discovery marks the first experimentally confirmed acoustic interaction between plants and insects affecting host selection.
• The research was led by Rya Seltzer and Guy Zer Eshel under professors Yossi Yovel and Lilach Hadany at Tel Aviv University and appears as a reviewed preprint in eLife.
• Findings suggest potential for developing sound-based pest management techniques that protect crops by manipulating acoustic cues.