Are Plants More Intelligent Than We Assumed?

Katie Liu

3/9/14

Link: http://phys.org/news/2014-03-intelligent-assumed.html

Published Date: March 4, 2014

Plants have been suggested to be more intelligent than previously thought. They are shown to be capable of making rather complex decisions, concluded from a study of barberry, a type of shrub. The seeds of barberry are often infected with the larvae of a certain species of fruit fly. The fly infects the seed where the larvae would eventually grow and feed on the plant. During a research, the seeds of the barberry were taken and examined. What was found that seeds containing the parasite have been cut off from receiving resources from the plant, essentially abandoning its development. Barberry fruits have a special characteristic in which they usually contain two seeds, as well as being able to stop the development of their seeds in order to save resources. This is to help protect the plant against the parasitic larvae. When one seed is infected, its resources from the plant are cut off. This effectively kills off the larvae while also protecting its second seed to ensure its survival. However, the research also found that the plant’s reaction to the larvae depends on the number of seeds the fruits have. If the fruits have two seeds, then one is aborted while the other uninfected seed continues to be supplied nutrients. However, if the fruit has one seed, then the plant continues to provide for the seed. This is because there is a small chance that the larvae could die by itself, which is better than no chance if the seed is aborted. This shows that plants are able to anticipate and calculate risks based on the circumstances it is in.

This article relates to our current curriculum about plants, which is the main feature in the article. More specifically, it relates to our talk of plants responding to changes in their environment. We discussed responses such as plants growing in the direction of light, which is beneficial to plants. The changes discussed in this article are also beneficial to plants as well since they allow plants to conserve their energy for other purposes. This also relates to Chapter 22 where it talks about plant defense against disease, which relates to this article as it also talks about how barberry defends itself against parasitic larvae.