The Green Plant as an Intelligent Organism - Communication in Plants: Neuronal Aspects of Plant Life - page 12

in which the life cycle is played out with occasional periods of stress that
simply slow it down (Aphalo and Bellare 1995). An excellent analogy of the
alternative active view posed here is to be found in social insects (Trewavas
2005). Not only are there numerous exploratory trails or flights to find rich
resources but, once discovered, changes in colony communication ensure
numerous individuals (like proliferating leaves or branch roots) are actively
employed in resource acquisition. The whole system benefits by the changes
in foraging form. Bell (1984) has drawn analogies between plant branching
and the foraging system of ants. The plant phenotype is constructed to
benefit the whole organism using environmental signals that are internally
assessed against current and previous experience. Competition is crucial;
the poem by Hirshfield (2005) uses the term resilience, that is a strategy
to deal with competition and to optimize the developing phenotype for
maximal seed production. Describing plants as intelligent organisms is
a conceptual change that indicates plants make dedicated active phenotypic
decisions that improve accomplishment of the life cycle and fitness.
A common mistake is to judge plant behaviour in human terms. Warwick
(2001), who warns against such thinking, makes the important point of
judging intelligence within the framework of the capability of the organism.
For plants, phenotypic change is the most relevant criterion but this needs
more detailed future analysis than space allows here.
Finally, a major difficulty in recognizing intelligent behaviour in plants
arises from an inability to assess root behaviour adequately. What is needed
is a non-invasive method of imaging three-dimensional root distributions
on a continuous basis. Various possibilities such as MRI or tomography or
others need exploration. There have been a few attempts in the past (pen-
etrating isotopes, slanting glass) but these are not very satisfactory. The
ultimate goal should be instrumentation that can enable accurate, continu-
ous, three-dimensional monitoring of tree root systems in the wild as well
as much smaller plants. Current methods rely largely on the destructive
procedures of exhumation. Only when the root system can be continu-
ally monitored will the intelligent integration of whole plant behaviour be
properly revealed.
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