Science has long known that many aquatic organisms detect electrical signals. We've now learned that some terrestrial organisms can as well. Questions abound.
"Electricity is something that we can’t sense ourselves other than in very extreme examples, like having an electric shock or if you’re under a really strong electric field, like a powerline. Because it’s not something that we readily experience in our everyday lives, it hasn’t been obvious to people that it could be playing such a big role in the wider ecological realm," says Dr. Sam England, a sensory ecologist at the Natural History Museum in Berlin.
England is a scientist with a background in both biology and physics, with extensive experience in entomology, ecology, computational modelling, statistical analysis, bioinformatics, and science communication.
He joins this episode of Many Minds to discuss "electric ecology," a field that explores how natural electric fields affect ecological interactions. This goes beyond just animals that can detect electricity; it includes how electricity influences broader environmental interactions, like pollen attraction to bees or ticks finding hosts through electric fields.
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"There’s a bit of a buzz out there, right now, but maybe you haven’t noticed. It’s in the water, it’s in the air. It’s electricity — and it’s all around us, all the time, including in some places you might not have expected to find it. We humans, after all, are not super tuned in to this layer of reality. But many other creatures are — and scientists are starting to take note.
Dr. Sam England is one of a handful of scientists uncovering some shocking things about the role of electricity in the natural world.
Here, Sam and I have a wide-ranging conversation about electroreception — which is the perception of electrical stimuli — and electric ecology — which is the study of the ecological roles of electricity.
We talk about how an interest in electroreception first got started, and why it’s recently resurged. We discuss aquatic electroreception versus aerial electroreception, active electroreception versus passive electroreception. We talk about how electroreception is actually kind of easy to evolve.
Along the way, we consider electrolocation and, its analog in sound, echolocation. We touch on dolphins, sharks, echidnas, ticks, caterpillars, bees, and spiders. We zoom in on electrostatic pollination, and what is inarguably the coolest sounding anatomical structure known to biology: the ampullae of Lorenzini."
Be sure to check out the show notes for links with detailed information.
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Templeton World Charity Foundation's Diverse Intelligences is a multiyear, global effort to understand a world alive with brilliance in many forms. Its mission is to promote open-minded, forward-looking inquiry in animal, human, and machine intelligences. We collaborate with leading experts and emerging scholars from around the globe, developing high-caliber projects that advance our comprehension of the constellation of intelligences.
Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI), made possible through a grant from TWCF to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The Many Minds podcast is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from Assistant Producer Urte Laukaityte. Creative support is provided by DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Artwork featured as the podcast badge is by Ben Oldroyd.
