Plant cognition

Plant cognition is the study of the mental capacities of plants. It explores the idea that plants are capable of responding to and learning from stimuli in their surroundings in order to choose and make decisions that are most appropriate to ensure survival. Over recent years, experimental evidence for the cognitive nature of plants has grown rapidly and has revealed the extent to which plant perceptual awareness of environmental information directs many behavioural feats and associated cognitive abilities. Some research claims that plants have physical structures functioning in the same way as the nervous systems of animals.

The idea of cognition in plants was first explored by Charles Darwin in the late 1800s. In the book The Power of Movement in Plants written together with his son Francis, he used a neurological metaphor to acknowledge the sensitivity of plant roots when he proposed that the tip of roots acts like the brain of some animals, even though plants neither possess actual brains nor nerves. 

Irrespective of whether this neurological metaphor is correct or, more generally, the modern application of neuroscience terminology and concepts to plants is appropriate, the Darwinian idea of the root tip of plants functioning as a “brain-like” organ (together with the so-called “root-brain hypothesis”) has experienced an ongoing revival in plant physiology.

While plant "neurobiology" focuses on the physiological study of plants, modern plant cognition primarily applies a behavioural/ecological approach. Today, plant cognition is emerging as an exciting field of research directed at experimentally testing the cognitive abilities of plants, including perception, learning processes, memory and consciousness. This framework holds considerable implications for the way we perceive plants as it redefines the traditionally held boundary between animals and plants.

In 2003, Anthony Trewavas led a study to see how the roots interact with one another and study their signal transduction methods. He was able to draw similarities between water stress signals in plants affecting developmental changes and signal transductions in neural networks causing responses in muscle. Particularly, when plants are under water stress, there are abscisic acid dependent and independent effects on development. This brings to light further possibilities of plant decision-making based on its environmental stresses. The integration of multiple chemical interactions show evidence of the complexity in these root systems.

In 2014, Anthony Trewavas released a book called Plant Behavior and Intelligence that highlighted a plant's cognition through its colonial-organization skills reflecting insect swarm behaviors. This organizational skill reflects the plants ability to interact with its surroundings to improve its survivability, and a plant's ability to identify exterior factors. Evidence of the plant's minimal cognition of spacial awareness can be seen in their root allocation in regards to neighboring plants. The organization of these roots have been found to originate from the root tip of plants.

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