The latest issue of Chemical & Engineering News reports alerted me to the discovery by a team of Brazilian botanists that tomatoes communicate sensory information back to their parent plant. The scientists worked this out by letting a hungry caterpillar gorge on wired-up Micro Toms much like my ripening cherry tomatoes (pictured). This seems a bit callous to me from the perspective of a plant. However, it is sweet for the sake of science (and the future butterfly).
Based on statistical analysis of the variation in signals*, the researchers concluded that the tomato plant sensed its fruit being eaten. Therefore, they hypothesized that the parent could fight back by emitting chemicals such as this one discovered by a University of Wisconsin biologist that makes attacking caterpillars eat each other .
Be careful the next time you squeeze tomatoes on the vine to check their ripeness—they might not like it and take revenge by turning you into a zombie. (Wow, that took a dark turn!)
* For experimental details, see Fruit Herbivory Alters Plant Electrome: Evidence for Fruit-Shoot Long-Distance Electrical Signaling in Tomato Plants, Frontiers of Sustainable Food Systems, 20 July 2021.