Rather than warning each other of impending doom, plants may be better off hiding signs of distress from each other, or even lying about danger that isn't there, according to a new study.
"Plants can gain a benefit from dishonest signaling because it harms their local competitors, by tricking them into investing in costly herbivore defence mechanisms," lead author Thomas Scott, an evolutionary theoretician at the University of Oxford, said in a statement. "Our results indicate that it is more likely that plants will behave deceptively toward their neighbours, rather than altruistically."
