Question: do bacteria communicate through sound waves?

Katie Fala answered on 11 Nov 2019:

Great question! Sound waves are indeed one of the main ways that we communicate vocally. As far as I am aware bacteria are not known to communicate through sound waves. However, there is a theory that bacteria can kind of indirectly produce electromagnetic signals by producing circular loops of DNA that direct changes in energy levels of electrons in the vicinity. Cool right?

But generally speaking, bacteria tend to communicate with other bacteria using chemical signals, for example in quorum sensing where the bacterial cells detect chemical signals made by each cell of their own kind – when there are low levels of the chemical they know that the population is very small and they tend to hide and survive, whereas when there are very high levels of the chemical it means that their population has become quite large, enough to overwhelm the human immune system for example, and they may change their collective behaviour to cause disease for example.