Book Reviewed: Plant Behaviour and Intelligence, by Anthony Trewavas

Plant Neurobiology

Adaptive information processing is a crucial evolutionary process in biological systems. Cells and tissues/organs in an organism function cooperatively as one complete biological machinery through which biological information flows. The author emphasizes the work of Nobel Laureate Barbara McClintock who expounded the idea that a biological cell integrates all information and responsible for cell-cell communication.

Although plants do not have a central nervous system or peripheral neurons, but they have intelligence. They perceive their surroundings and actively compete for limited resources and perform cost-benefit analysis. They take appropriate adaptive actions in response to environmental stimuli with their integrated signaling and communicative systems. Thus, plants adapt to their environment and evolved with different sensory and regulatory systems; they have complex adaptive behavior. This contrasts with animals which select their environment to find food and mate, but they also migrate with changing seasons. Since plants are fixed to a location, their adaptive behavior is different. For example, plants must synthesize their own food using basic components from soil and atmosphere using sunlight. An additional short-coming stems from the fact that half of plant behavior is in the root system that grows below the ground against gravity.

Adaptive differences between plants and animals is illustrated in some of their functions. For example, quantum mechanics has become an integral part of biochemical phenomenon such as photosynthesis in plants, and in avian migration and navigational systems. It is known for almost a century that almost all biological and biochemical interactions are known to follow the laws of classical physics with quantum mechanics operating indirectly through the electronic structures of the molecules. But now life is known to be lot more intricate since quantum physics operates directly in living beings. This offers the full benefits of its laws making life highly efficient and self-sustaining. Birds and insects (butterflies) migrate hundreds and thousands of miles using internal navigation systems that also operate on the laws of quantum physics. Evolved species like mammals seem to lack this highly efficient mechanisms illustrate the complexity of adaptation, natural selection, heritable characteristics, variation, mutation, reproduction and gene flow.

This is one of the better books I have read in this field that puts plant neurobiology in perspective without using the term “neurobiology.” The author addresses plant memory and learning mechanisms by focusing on cell-cell communication and plant behavior. Plants evolve just like animals, and experiments demonstrate that they have memory, intelligence and learning behavior.