The Consciousness of Plants
Ok so I ended up watching way too many plant documentaries the last day or two, and I found out some interesting things from two in particular. (TL;DR and links at the end)
As some of you may know, there is increasing evidence that plants DO communicate and have some sort of consciousness it would seem.
SO! Here are some of the things that lead people to believe that plants have consciousness:
-There are synapse like structures in the root bases of plants
-Plants are more genetically complex than humans. For example: the human genome has 26,000 genes. The humble rice plant? 50,000 genes.
-Plants have kinship behaviours. As in they recognize family members and treat them as such. Like in general? Plants compete aggressively for resources. Even against plants of the same species. BUT! Plants don't compete against their siblings. They are nice and they share. (Siblings being plants whose seeds came from the same mother plant.) AND most amazing of all? Mother trees take care of their saplings!! Saplings are small and can't compete for resources in a forest like big established trees can. So, through an underground network of roots and fungi, mother trees give nutrients, carbon, photosynthesized food, etc. to their saplings. And the smaller, younger, or even just weaker/sicker the sapling is, the more resources the mother tree gives to it!!
-If a plant is being eaten too much, it will up its deadliness. Enough to kill dozens of large fauna in some cases (like animals the size of a horse). Like these are normally harmless plants we're talking about. AND it will tell nearby plants that there are too many animals eating here, so THOSE plants will up their deadliness, making THEM poisonous too.
-There are plants (like wild tobacco) that will change their flowering schedule and flavour if their primary pollinator is laying too many caterpillar eggs, and the caterpillars were eating too much of it. Like this isn't a generational change, this is a situational change. Too many caterpillars? Different flowers. Caterpillars under control? Goes back to moth friendly conditions.
-Plants are aware of their surroundings. This is most clearly evidenced by plants that move in response to stimuli, like the mimosa (aka the "sensitive plant"), or certain carnivorous plants like the venus flytrap or the sundew. However they've found that parasitic plants like the dodder vine actually have favourite foods! And when given the choice between different plants, they choose the tomato plant every single time (when available)!! And time lapsed footage shows them seemingly sniffing the air for the smell of that sweet, sweet tomato goodness. And they tested it and found that they respond to the smell of the tomato plant! (They put a dodder sprout between a vial of isolated tomato scent, and a tomato plant that it couldn't smell, and it chose the vial.) Time lapsed footage of root growth shows their movement is identical to the movement patterns of animals foraging for food! (Plants get nutrients from the soil, so it's foraging for nutrients) AND when you cut off the tip of a new root, it doesn't do the squirming searching pattern that roots typically do, it just grows straight and wildly. Meaning that the tips of roots have sensors in them!!
-Plants have memory. The clearest example is with the Telegraph plant. This plant has been nicknamed the "dancing plant" because of the fact that the smaller leaves on it respond to sound. They move around when they hear stuff!! And it's not towards the sound or anything like that, they just... move around! But what does this have to do with memory? WELL! You can TRAIN a dancing plant to be a better dancer!! If there is a plant that is isolated from sound, it won't dance very well. But over time if you give it music or whatever, it'll get more and more active when it hears sound! They've also done other experiments that test more sedentary plants' memories. And plants will remember positions the were in, conditions they experienced, etc. for several days! (Maybe longer, the experiments thus far have only tested several days.)
-PLANTS SLEEP. Seriously!! A research lab in Japan has found that plants run on a 24hr clock similar to animals (including humans). Hell for some plants this is actually visible: their leaves (and flowers if they have them) close up! And the researchers were able to isolate the "plant melatonin" (so to speak) and when exposed to it, the plants will go into sleep mode - regardless of light conditions! What's most fascinating of all: Plants can become sleep deprived. If they go 2wks without sleep? They yellow, whither, and eventually die. Like they hyper-controlled all the conditions like temperature, moisture, etc. So that the only thing they were getting too much exposure to was light. And 24/7 light, (which kept them from sleeping - they monitored them and the plants weren't sleeping the whole time) kills them after about 2 weeks. Which is the same amount of time it takes for most animals (including humans) to die from total sleep deprivation.
-They communicate via chemicals/pheromones..... just like insects do. Which means they can also call on predatory insects for help if they are getting too many bugs eating them. But in general: most bugs communicate with the pheromones they emit. Which is the same exact way that plants communicate with each other. So if bugs' methods of communication is valid, I think it’d be foolish to dismiss it in plants.
TL;DR: Plants have synapse like structures in the bases of their roots, have more complex genomes then us, have kinship behaviours - ie are kind and nurturing towards family, are aware of their surroundings, change based on what is happening, sleep (and will die from the same amount of sleep deprivation that kills most animals - including humans), have memories, and communicate the same way bugs do. Basically plants are living things, and there is ever increasing evidence of plant consciousness.
Documentaries: What Plants Talk About How Plants Communicate And Think
