Plants are people

 

"What Plants Talk About" is a National Geographic documentary, following a number of scientists in Canada and the United States as they try to prove that plants are more advanced than hitherto believed. Plants, it turns out, don´t live sedentary and solitary lives. Rather, they espouse a wide range of animal-like behaviors including foraging, making choices, communication, territoriality and kin-recognition. Or at least that´s what Dr James Cahill, a featured plant ecologist, believes. He concedes, though, that most people would consider him crazy! Or crazy and wrong...

Regardless of how you chose to interpret the activities of plants, they are fascinating. One segment of the documentary deals with the wild tobacco plant and its constant chemical warfare against the predators that would like to feast on its stem and leaves. The nicotine is actually a toxin meant to poison each and every bug that dares to attack this particular plant. However, hawkmoth caterpillars or hornworms are practically immune to nicotine, prompting the plant to take further action. By emitting a different chemical, the tobacco plant can attract big-eyed bugs, which feed on hawkmoth eggs and caterpillars. The plant can also offer "sweats" to the caterpillars through its trichomes (fine outgrowths on the stem), but the gift is deadly: the chemical marks the caterpillar for predation, as other animals can now sense its smell! Bizarrely, the hawkmoth is also the main pollinator of wild tobacco plants - that´s why the plant blooms during the night. However, the plant can somehow chose to change the shape of its flowers and the taste of their nectar, and instead bloom during daytime, attracting a very different pollinator - the hummingbird - which doesn´t threaten it later on. 

One group of scientists have tried to find out whether or not plants can recognize their kin, in this case their "siblings" (plants that have the same "mother"). It turns out that some species indeed can, something that almost shocked the research team. One such species is the searocket, which grows on sandy beaches in Canada. The plants grow more roots if they grow close to "strangers", and politely restrain root growth if they grow near "siblings". A clear example of genetic altruism among plants. (The roots identify each other chemically.)

The last segment of the docu deals with "the wood-wibe web", more formally known as mycorrhizal networks. Mycorrhiza is a form of symbiosis between trees and fungi, which mutually exchange nutrients. However, it seems that entire forests can form "networks" of "communication" and resource-sharing through this symbiosis. "Mother" trees can send nutrients to their "daughters" (saplings) through the fungal-based network.

One problem with "What Plants Talk About" is that it seems to be geared towards a popular audience steeped in New Age thinking. It´s not *that* obvious, but it shines through here and there. Thus, the Hollywood fantasy flick "Avatar" is mentioned, and the question of altruism is nature is treated as some kind of mystery, which (of course) it isn´t. The kin recognition of the searockets is standard genetic altruism, and other behaviors mentioned could be interpreted as reciprocal altruism. All described long ago in books by Richard Dawkins! 

Or am I just imagining all this? 

The never stated question underlying this entire production is whether or not plants actually have consciousness. One scientist suggests that the wild tobacco plant might have "self-awereness". Personally, I think the answers very much depends on how you define "consciousness". What does it take to be conscious? After all, nobody denies that plants or fungi are alive. But are they "conscious" in the animal sense (really human sense - nobody cares about caterpillars)? Perhaps a better question is: Do plants *need* to be conscious in an animal way in order to "forage", "communicate", and so on? We may simply be animalo-centric for assuming that "consciousness" in the standard sense is the only thing that can make shit happen on Planet Crazy...