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Vine tendril. Note how the plant reaches for and purposely wraps around the galvanised wire provided for the purpose. This is a very tough twig and appears to have no other purpose than support for the plant. Nothing else grows from it. It must reach out softly, then wrap around and then dry and toughen. See more at thigmotropism.

In botany, plant intelligence is the ability of plants to sense the environment and adjust their morphology, physiology and phenotype accordingly.[1]

Intelligence is an umbrella term describing abilities such as the capacities for abstract thought, understanding, communication, reasoning, learning, learning from past experiences, planning, and problem solving. Studies indicate plants are capable of problem solving and communication.

Problem solving

Plants adapt their behaviour in a variety of ways:

Mechanisms

Main articles: Signal transduction, Plant neurobiology, and Plant hormone

In plants, the mechanism responsible for adaptation is signal transduction.[9][10][11][12] Plants do not have a brain or neuronal network, but reactions within signalling pathways may provide a biochemical basis for learning and memory.[13] Controversially, the brain is used as a metaphor in plant intelligence to provide an integrated view of signalling,[14] (see plant neurobiology).

Plant cells can be electrically excitable and can display rapid electrical responses (action potentials) to environmental stimuli. These action potentials can influence processes such as actin-based cytoplasmic streaming, plant organ movements, wound responses, respiration, photosynthesis and flowering.[15][16][17][18]

Plant perception

Main article: Plant perception (physiology)

Plants have many strategies to fight off pests. For example, they can produce different toxins (phytoalexins) against invaders or they can induce rapid cell death in invading cells to hinder the pests from spreading out. These strategies depend on quick and reliable recognition-systems.

Light

Main articles: Photomorphogenesis and photoperiodism

Plants also can detect harmful ultraviolet B-rays and then start producing pigments which filter out these rays.[19]

Contact stimuli

Main articles: Thigmotropism and Thigmomorphogenesis

The mimosa plant (Mimosa pudica) makes its thin leaves point down at the slightest touch and carnivorous plants such as the Venus flytrap snap shut by the touch of insects. [citation needed]

Jasmonate levels also increase rapidly in response to mechanical perturbations such as tendril coiling.[20]

Plant adaptation vs plant intelligence

It has been argued that although plants are capable of adaptation, it should not be called intelligence. "A bacterium can monitor its environment and instigate developmental processes appropriate to the prevailing circumstances, but is that intelligence? Such simple adaptation behaviour might be bacterial intelligence but is clearly not animal intelligence."[21] However, plant intelligence fits with the definition of intelligence proposed by David Stenhouse in a book he wrote about evolution where he described it as "adaptively variable behaviour during the lifetime of the individual".[22]

It is also argued that a plant cannot have goals because operational control of the plant's organs is devolved.[21]

History

Charles Darwin studied the movement of plants and in 1880 published a book The Power of Movement in Plants. In the book he concludes:

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the tip of the radicle thus endowed [..] acts like the brain of one of the lower animals; the brain being situated within the anterior end of the body, receiving impressions from the sense-organs, and directing the several movements.

See also

References

  1. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1016/j.tplants.2005.07.005, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1016/j.tplants.2005.07.005 instead.
  2. ^ a b De Kroon, H. and Hutchings, M.J. (1995) Morphological plasticity in clonal plants: the foraging concept reconsidered. J. Ecol. 83, 143–152
  3. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1023/A:1019640813676, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1023/A:1019640813676 instead.
  4. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1016/S0065-2504(08)60215-9, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1016/S0065-2504(08)60215-9 instead.
  5. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1126/science.199.4331.888, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1126/science.199.4331.888 instead.
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  9. ^ Scheel, Dierk; Wasternack, C. (2002). Plant signal transduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-963879-9.
  10. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1034/j.1399-3054.2001.1120202.x, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1034/j.1399-3054.2001.1120202.x instead.
  11. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite pmid}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by PMID 12194182, please use {{cite journal}} with |pmid=12194182 instead.
  12. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite pmid}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by PMID 10200239, please use {{cite journal}} with |pmid=10200239 instead.
  13. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite pmid}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by PMID 9888852, please use {{cite journal}} with |pmid=9888852 instead.
  14. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1016/j.tplants.2006.06.009, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1016/j.tplants.2006.06.009 instead.
  15. ^ Wagner E, Lehner L, Normann J, Veit J, Albrechtova J (2006). Hydroelectrochemical integration of the higher plant—basis for electrogenic flower induction. pp 369–389 In: Balusˇka F, Mancuso S, Volkmann D (eds) Communication in plants: neuronal aspects of plant life. Springer, Berlin.
  16. ^ Fromm J, Lautner S. (2007). Electrical signals and their physiological significance in plants. Plant Cell Environ. 30(3):249-57. doi:10.1111/j.1365-3040.2006.01614.x PMID 17263772
  17. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite pmid}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by PMID 19129416, please use {{cite journal}} with |pmid=19129416 instead.
  18. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite jstor}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by jstor:4353850, please use {{cite journal}} with |jstor=4353850 instead.
  19. ^ Åke Strid and Robert J. Porra. Alterations in Pigment Content in Leaves of Pisum sativum After Exposure to Supplementary UV-B. Plant and Cell Physiology, 1992, Vol. 33, No. 7 1015-1023
  20. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1007/BF00201050, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1007/BF00201050 instead.
  21. ^ a b Attention: This template ({{cite pmid}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by PMID 15023701, please use {{cite journal}} with |pmid=15023701 instead.
  22. ^ http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg17523535.700-not-just-a-pretty-face.html
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