"We have shown that plants can recognize when a good neighbor is growing next to them," said study co-author Monica Gagliano, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Western Australia.

"We are proposing that this communication may be based upon an acoustic exchange."

The findings, published this week in the journal BMC Ecology, suggest that plants can not only "smell" the chemicals and "see" the reflected light of their neighbors, they may also "listen" to the plants around them.

"Plants are more complex organisms than we've given them credit for," Gagliano said.

In the new study, Gagliano and her colleague Michael Renton showed that chili plants sprouted faster and were healthier, compared with those grown in isolation, when they were grown