Sagebrush (Artemisa tridentate)
Almost a year ago, scientists from Goethe University in Frankfurt showed that magpies are self-aware (check out the video below), that one knows the creature it sees in the mirror is itself, not another bird. That discovery was big news, as self-awareness was thought to be a special trait found only in higher-order primates. But now there is even bigger—and stranger—news: self-aware plants.
That is the claim of Richard Karban, professor in the Entomology department at UC-Davis (UCD). He states that, “Plants engage in self-recognition and can communicate danger to their “clones” or genetically identical cuttings planted nearby.” [UCD] The research, published in Ecology Letters, would be the first suggestion of this kind, that plants are fully aware of themselves and look out for their own kind.
The study showed that plants that are damaged send out some form of signal to neighbors in order to boost protection levels. Studying sagebrush (Artemisa tridentate), scientists clipped branches from 30 plants. The clippings were planted in pots and then placed back in the field near the parent plants or unclipped plants which served as a control. They found that “plants within 60 centimeters of an experimentally clipped neighbor in the field experienced less leaf damage (by grasshoppers or other herbivores) over the season, compared with plants near an unclipped neighbor.” [UCD]
This, Karban believes, is proof that plants are self-aware, that they know they are incurring damage and must protect their own branches that were planted in another pot. Karban thinks this plant behavior shows that the leafy creatures are “capable of more sophisticated behavior than we imagined.” [UCD] The research is in infant stage, with no concrete scientific evidence to explain the results that Karban witnessed. How this communication between a plant and its branches is occurring is only at the point of speculation.
At the moment, Karban believes it involves the secretion of key chemicals, and these chemicals spark a change in plant characteristics that drive away herbivores. Their research showed that after the clippings (which are not unlike the damage that some herbivores would inflict on a plant) “herbivores responded to changes in plant characteristics and were not being repelled directly by airborne cues released by clipped individuals.” [UCD] This means that the plant itself is changing in a way that drives off predators.
And the way these changes occur in both the parent and clipped plants suggest that the sagebrush has some level of self-awareness. If true, and if the experiments can be corroborated in other plant species, then this would prove a groundbreaking study indeed.
The video was first shown on New Scientist.
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Comments
This is a great article, thanks for sharing the information.
A blow to vegetarians the world over.
This is by far the stupidest science reporting I have ever read. If you look at the original article on UCD, the author only uses the term "self-recognition", never "self-awareness", nor he does claim the plants "know" anything. All that happened was that one plant sent some chemical signal that its clones responded to but genetically distinct plants did not. There is no need to infer any consciousness on the plants behalf to explain this, nor does Karban do so.
>If you look at the original article on UCD, the author only uses the term "self-recognition", never "self-awareness"...
Let me elaborate the difference using an example: cells in your immune system can recognize which cells are part of you and which are foreign (self-recognition), but that does not mean they are conscious (as in self-awareness).
This article is not very scientific, nor is it logical. Following this logic, ants would be self-aware as well. That, and the argument in this article, is ridiculous.
"[plants] send out some form of signal"
Yea, these signals are called chemicals. This is no secret. All the plant is doing is REACTING to an airborne chemical messenger, probably a plant hormone, triggering a cascade effect reconfiguring the plant's biochemistry for protection. This has nothing to do with self-awareness, but just basic biochemistry and evolution.
Please, try to be a little more accurate with you "reporting" next time.
[Cerebrl]
Is self-organization [non-mineral kind} exhibited by the living beings (from cell upwards) is not enough to say that all life forms, have an identity/ self-awareness. [i think mirror test is inappropriate,and unrequired]. "Reacting" by nonlife things need not be confused to be in necessarily exact synonymy with "Reacting" by the life forms. Agreed, chemical reactions instantatly formable, but the cited chemical response by the plants as simple? The cascade effect is nothing more geographical, there is no further effort involved in assembling the entire battery of reactions within the cell? Ok, cell/ cytoplasm, is nothing more than a geographical [ie local] agglomeration of the different chemicals. But how do the so many different hundreds of chemicals cluster inside a "cell wall" quadrillions/pentillions/sextillions of times through billions of years? Mere extended minerology or crystallography? Mere extensions? And the billions aggregating to form part of organism, is nothing more than the sum of the parts? billions of cells equal billions of cells, not plant or ant or human? I want to wonder when if "organization" phase transforms in to "awareness", and identity and life are formed at that phase boundary, not later. You may also wonder on when "geography" phase tranforms in to "cell"; and on, when an aggregate of chemicals transforms to structure of cell; and on, when/how before that a variety of chemicals come together. [but to start from why there are minerals/solids instead of only stochastic gases may be starting from too early, as far as we want to limit our discussion to "how plants or ants cannot have self-identity not mere self-awareness".]
Did they base that movie "The happeneing" off this supposed discovery?
I think what makes this research interesting and even meaningful to me is my desire to understand sentience. Which animals are sentient? Can plants be sentient? When I was a child I read a book called the Secret Life of Plants (I can't remember the authors right now. This book revealed research done that suggested that plants not only are sentient, but perhaps even psychic. I now have a science background and take any claim with a grain of salt, but my intellectual/scientific curiosity along with my desire to be a better person finds this kind of inquiry interesting. Understanding how other life on this planet functions is directly related to how we function and should function with the other life forms we share the planet with.
We must as humans try to learn our place on this planet and I think when we do we will be humbled by it.
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