Frantisek Baluska

Preface (extract)

Plants are generally considered to be passive and insensitive organisms. One can trace this strong belief back to Aristoteles, who positioned immobile plants outside of the sensitive life domain. The millennia that have elapsed between time of Aristoteles and the present day highlight the fact that it will very difficult to change this almost dogmatic view. For instance, one of the first serious attempts to rehabilitate plants was performed by no less than Charles Darwin, in 1880. At the end of the book The Power of Movement in Plants, which he wrote together with his son Francis, they proposed that the root apex represents the brain-like anterior pole of the plant body.

This volume, in fact the whole series, documents a paradigm shift that is currently underway in the plant sciences. In the last two or three decades, plants have been unmasked as being very sensitive organisms that monitor and integrate large numbers of abiotic and biotic parameters from their environment. That plants react to electric stimuli in the same manner as animals was shown by Alexander von Humboldt a few years after Luigi Galvani discovered the electrical stimulation of animal muscles in frogs’ legs. Later, when animal action potentials were discovered in animals, similar action potentials were soon recorded in plants too. Initially only “sensitive plants” were tested, but some 30 years ago it was found that all plants use action potentials to respond to environmental stimuli. This rather dramatic breakthrough went almost unnoticed in the mainstream plant sciences. Only recently, the emergence of plant neurobiology has highlighted this neglected aspect of biology. The obvious conservation that occurs throughout evolution means that action potentials provide both plants and animals with evolutionary advantages that are crucial to their adaptive behavior and survival. As plants evolved action potentials independently of animals, this phenomenon also holds the key to illuminating the mystery of convergent evolution, a phenomenon that does not conform to the classical Darwinian principles of biological evolution.

Sample chapter from the book:

Cognition in plants:

Abstract

We discuss the possibility and the meaning of the claim that plants are cognitive from the perspective of embodied cognition. In embodied cognition, the notion of cognition can be interpreted in a very broad way and applied to many free-moving creatures. In this chapter, we discuss whether and (if so) how this approach applies to intelligence in plants. Building on work from “plant neurobiology,” we discuss the differences in speed between plants and animals, similarities between sensory-driven plant growth and animal memory, and the presence of offline behavior in plants. In our view, these examples show that under a wide, embodied interpretation of cognition, plants may well qualify as being cognitive.

This volume documents how plant ecosphere inhabitants communicate with each other to coordinate their behavioral patterns and shows the role of viruses in this highly dynamic interactional networks

Plants are sessile, highly sensitive organisms that actively compete for environmental resources both above and below the ground. They assess their surroundings, estimate how much energy they need for particular goals, and then realise the optimum variant. They take measures to control certain environmental resources. They perceive themselves and can distinguish between ‘self’ and ‘non-self’. They process and evaluate information and then modify their behaviour accordingly. These highly diverse competences are made possible by parallel sign(alling)-mediated communication processes within the plant body (intraorganismic), between the same, related and different species (interorganismic), and between plants and non-plant organisms (transorganismic). Intraorganismic communication involves sign-mediated interactions within cells (intracellular) and between cells (intercellular). This is crucial in coordinating growth and development, shape and dynamics. Such communication must function both on the local level and between widely separated plant parts. This allows plants to coordinate appropriate response behaviours in a differentiated manner, depending on their current developmental status and physiological influences. Lastly, this volume documents how plant ecosphere inhabitants communicate with each other to coordinate their behavioural patterns, as well as the role of viruses in these highly dynamic interactional networks.

Long-Distance Systemic Signaling and Communication in Plants (2013)

Signaling and Communication in Plant Symbiosis (2012)

Plant Communication from an Ecological Perspective (2010)

Signaling and Communication in Polar Auxin Transport (2013)

Communication in Plants: Neuronal Aspects of Plant Life (2006)

Cell-Cell Channels (2006)

For a complete list of publications click here.