Plants seem to dose themselves with a chemical similar to aspirin when they get stressed. They don’t get stressed by migraines or stubbing their toes but drought, pathogens or extreme temperatures have them reaching for their own version of the pill bottle.

“Unlike humans, who are advised to take aspirin as a fever suppressant, plants have the ability to produce their own mix of aspirin-like chemicals, triggering the formation of proteins that boost their biochemical defences and reduce injury,” says Thomas Karl, a researcher at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (press release).

Karl says that although it has previously been known that plants in labs can produce methyl salicylate, a type of acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin), it hasn’t been seen in the wild before. But Karl reports in Biogeosciences that instruments set up to measure plant emissions of other volatile organic compounds also picked up methyl salicylate.

The study could also add weight to suggestions that methyl salicylate is used by plants to signal each other about threats.

“These findings show tangible proof that plant-to-plant communication occurs on the ecosystem level. It appears that plants have the ability to communicate through the atmosphere,” says NCAR scientist Alex Guenther, a co-author of the study.

They’re talking now, soon they’ll be getting organised and then we’re in real trouble.

News coverage

Plants make their own painkillers – MSNBC

Stressed plants produce an aspirin-like chemical – AP

Stressed plants release aspirin-like chemical – Reuters

Image: One of NCAR’s plant emission measuring towers / Carlye Calvin, ©UCAR