Animals & nature · 2019
Can playing bee flight sounds make Oenothera drummondii flowers produce sweeter nectar?
Yes. In a sound-playback experiment, Oenothera drummondii flowers produced sweeter nectar within three minutes of hearing recorded bee flight sounds or artificial sounds at similar pitches. Higher-pitched sounds did not trigger this response. The finding concerns this species under the tested sound conditions, not plants or sounds generally.
Details
Researchers tested whether Oenothera drummondii flowers could respond rapidly to airborne sounds made by pollinating insects. They played recordings of a flying bee and artificial sounds at similar pitches, and compared the responses with those to higher-pitched sounds.
The bee sounds and similar-pitched artificial sounds caused the flowers to vibrate, and their nectar became sweeter within three minutes. Neither the vibration nor the nectar response occurred with the higher-pitched sounds. This selective response suggests that the flower’s physical vibration could help it detect sound, but that mechanism remains a proposed explanation.
Sweeter nectar might increase the chances of pollen moving between plants. However, the abstract does not demonstrate that benefit or establish that other plant species would respond in the same way.
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