Plant Signals in a Geomagnetic Storm

Question this experiment will answer:
Can a geomagentic storm alter the electrical signalling patterns of a Conifer (Picea alba)?

We know that animal species can sense the earth’s geomagnetic field. Many bird species use their magnetoreception for navigation. Some cetaceans such as dolphins and orcas also sense the magnetic field and use it for navigating long distances through the oceans. It is believed that when geomagnetic disturbances (storms) ocurr these marine mammals can temporarily lose their sense of direction. More recently it was shown that at least one ant species uses the geomagnetic field as an additional cue for finding their way back to their nest.

Plants do not move and sensing the earth’s magnetic field for the purpose of ortientation may not give them any significant advantage as it does to the motile animal species mentioned, however since geomagnetic storms are mostly caused by abrupt changes in the particle flow and the spectral output of the sun and plants are very sensitive to different wavelengths of light, even if they don’t sense geomagnetism directly they could be sensing the associated changes in photon spectral composition and react to it, for example to protect their sensitive photosynthetic machinery.

Unfortunately we had to stop this experiment on 7 June 2025 after six months of data collection because our equipment was stolen from the field site. We lost one environmental recorder and two plant signal recorders “Minions”.

Luckily we have developed a new type of plant signal recorder, the Phyclops One v2 which we could use to setup a new plant and geomagnetism experiment or instead create a completely different experiment related to plant associative learning (plant intelligence)

All videos for the Geomagentism long-run experiment

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Introduction

Geomagnetic Kp-index (global indicator for disturbances of the Earth’s magnetic field)