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It has been suggested that this article be merged into Plant perception (physiology). (Discuss) Proposed since September 2012.

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

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:

• Active foraging for light and nutrients. They do this by changing their architecture, physiology and phenotype.
• Leaves and branches are positioned and oriented in response to light source.
• Ability to detect soil volume and adapt growth accordingly independently of nutrient availability.
• Adaptively defend against herbivores.

Mechanisms

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

Plant perception

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

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

Contact stimuli

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.

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

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." 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".

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

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

• Plant perception (paranormal)
• Plant perception (physiology)
• Plant rights
• The Secret Life of Plants

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. ^ De Kroon, H. and Hutchings, M.J. (1995) Morphological plasticity in clonal plants: the foraging concept reconsidered. J. Ecol. 83, 143–152
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9. Scheel, Dierk; Wasternack, C. (2002). Plant signal transduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-963879-9.
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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.
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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
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21. ^ 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

• Articles to be merged from September 2012
• Intelligence
• Botany
• Plant physiology
• Paranormal terminology