Plants have been observed to interact with the environment in ways that one scientists has claimed proves they are conscious.
Paco Calvo, a professor at the University of Murcia in Spain, has been researching plant intelligence and problem-solving for years, finding the mimosa appears to ‘learn from experience’ when it stops folding up.
‘In psychology that’s the most basic form of learning,’ Calvo told DailyMail.com.
‘This pattern of folding, then not folding any more, is consistent with the idea that this plant has learned something as a result of experience, not from its genes.’
The professor also noted that other plants communicate with each other through chemicals, solve problems, and even appear to have memories.
Mimosas can also ‘learn’ that a particular touch is safe
Many scientists define intelligence as having a central nervous system, where electrical signals pass along messages to other nerves to process information.
Instead, plants have a vascular system, which is a network of cells that transports water, minerals and nutrients to help them grow.
‘We think of plants as resources, for fuel, for oxygen, for textiles, for foods, but we don’t respect them for their own sake,’ said Calvo.
‘If we can understand another form of intelligence that does not require brains, perhaps we can understand what unites us all in the tree of life.
‘We need to find the master key.’
Calvo is a Professor at the University of Murcia in Spain , where he leads the Minimal Intelligence Lab (MINT Lab)
Some plants appear to ‘remember’ droughts, conserving water more efficiently than plants who have not lived through droughts previously, and strawberries can be trained to associate light with nutrient patches, said the professor.
He continued to explain that plants also learn to time the release of pollen to when pollinators such as bees are present.
Researchers have also speculated that plants may be able to count, make decisions, recognize their relatives and even remember events.
The problem is that humans have an understanding of intelligence based on themselves – which is centered on animals with brains, and leads us to ignore other possible intelligences and consciousnesses.
‘Our view is you’ve got to be an animal, otherwise you cannot be smart. This is very short sighted,’ said Calvo.
A recent study conducted at Cornell University found that goldenrods emit a chemical when eaten by beetles, tricking the insects into thinking it is damaged and a poor food source – then nearby goldenrods do the same.
Andre Kessler, a chemical ecologist and professor at Cornell, said: ‘This would fit our definition of intelligence.
Wild strawberries can ‘learn’ to associate light with nutrient patches
‘Depending on the information it receives from the environment, the plant changes its standard behavior.’
Calvo is among a growing number of scientists who are calling for a new understanding of how plants solve problems and communicate – and said that the way they do so is in many ways similar to how humans ‘think’, just without one central brain.
‘Plant cells fire spikes of voltage in the form of action potentials, just like brain cells. When you touch the trigger hair of Venus Flytrap twice and it snaps shut, it’s an action potential,’ he said.
‘Not having a brain or a nervous system doesn’t mean that you cannot have electrochemical communication!’
Calvo has also suggested that plants ‘think’ using their vascular system, which is a network of cells that transports water, minerals and nutrients to help them grow.
But it’s also used to transmit information, he noted.
A recent study conducted at Cornell University found that goldenrods emit a chemical when eaten by beetles, tricking the insects into thinking it is damaged and a poor food source – then nearby goldenrods do the same
‘Not having a brain or nervous system doesn’t mean you can’t have some form of electrochemical communication,’ the professor continued.
‘You have electrical signals travelling through the vascular system – so your plant is not simply responding where it’s been stimulated, it can respond at the other end of the plant.
‘Plants don’t have a brain but they still make use of electrochemical communication at their own timescale to stay alive.’
Calvo said that the same neurotransmitters present in human brains (such as glutamate or GABA) are also present in plants – and are sometimes used in the same way.
Paco Calvo argues that plants are conscious, but in a very different way
‘So if you have a plant, and you have this caterpillar munching on the leaf, the plant can use the neurotransmitter glutamate to trigger a calcium wave that spreads throughout its stem and leaves, creating a defensive chemical weapon to repel the caterpillar,’ he explained.
Calvo said that plants have to have a different survival strategy to humans because they are rooted to the soil – so their strategy is to ‘divide and conquer.
‘So if you try to grab or attack an animal, it can fight back,’ he explained.
‘In the case of plants, they cannot do any of that – so their strategy is to have everything truly decentralized.
‘If you chop a branch off, they will grow another branch. That doesn’t happen to me if you chop my arm off.’
Research to understand plant intelligence could be crucial in understanding ourselves and in the battle against climate change.
‘We think of plants as resources, for fuel, for oxygen, for textiles, for foods, but we don’t respect them for their own sake,’ said Calvo.
‘If we can understand another form of intelligence that does not require brains, perhaps we can understand what unites us all in the tree of life. We need to find the master key.’