Connections in Plants Have Created a Cooperative Environment

The underground connections of plants and their distress signals have surprising signs of empathetic behavior. These abilities, at first glance, appear to be just a means of survival. The attachment of their roots and form of communication allows them to share vital nutrients and warn for danger. The link enables them to work together for the survival of the entire ecosystem.

The main link comes from fungi. Mushrooms create a “mycorrhizal network,” or a connection of their roots, before they breach the surface of dirt; described in the National Forest Foundation article, “Underground Network: The Amazing Connections Beneath Your Feet.” Fungi take a percentage of nutrients exchanged between other plants to sustain themselves. However, Author Britt Holewinski says trees tend to be the main source of resources, recognizing their own species and sending supplements, like water and carbon, to new, struggling saplings. Holewinski explains:

For saplings growing in particularly shady areas, there is not enough sunlight reaching their leaves to perform adequate photosynthesis. For survival, the sapling relies on nutrients and sugar from older, taller trees sent through the mycorrhizal network.”

As the saplings have nothing to provide for the full grown tree, the act appears to be selfless. The saplings without proper resources send distress signals to alert others of their unhealthy state, and healthy trees can immediately respond. It’s an incredibly helpful link. The well sustained trees have no other reason besides a helping hand to send support to the sapling. The idea is very endearing, picturing how nature works together.

Distress signals sent by plants is explained in more detail by Hirokazu Ueda in the journal, Plant Communication: Mediated by individual or blended vocs? The authors studied “volatile organic compounds,” defined as “airborne signals.” They can be used for a range of reasons, such as attracting pollinators or alerting nearby plants of incoming danger. The plants alerted of the danger can prepare for consequences, increasing the production of defensive chemicals.

After analyzing plant’s capacity to alter for danger and transfer resources, the plants sending information or nutrients have very little benefit for themselves. In the far future they may be able to have an equal exchange of resources, yet there is no mutual benefit in the moment. In humans, this kind of selfless act is related to empathy. Behavior displaying generosity for someone in danger or a state of distress is an emotional response. It’s unexpected to think an organism without a brain has this sort of capacity, although their behavior is so similar to people. It begs the question of what plants are capable of.

Plant intelligence is explored in “New Research on Plant Intelligence may forever change how you think about plants,” from The World. The author explains the findings of researcher and animal biologist, Monica Gagliano. She studied the mimosa pudica plant, a fern-like plant that closes it’s leaves when it senses contact. Gagliano repeatedly dropped the plant without harming it. At first, it would close on impact. After a few more falls, the plant would stop responding to being dropped. She shook the plant to see if it simply stopped reacting to any danger, yet it closed at this action. Weeks later, she repeated the dropping action again and the plant still refused to close.

The researcher concluded that the plant had a learning ability. It remembered that falling would not harm it, and stopped reacting to the action. Other forms of contact still triggered it to respond, so it must have learned that it was specifically safe when Gagliano dropped the plant. The author related this learning capacity to signs of intelligence. Even without neurons, they show behavior that is linked to processing information, remembering the information, and enacting it. It’s a learned response.

Plant intelligence and memory introduces a new perspective on their capabilities. Furthermore, the idea is another similarity to humans. It takes a level of intelligence to care for another being. Along with a plant’s selfless behavior, it appears to be so shockingly similar to people. It could be possible for plants to remember their own distress in the past, and reflect it on the current situations of their neighboring species.

Moreover, an individual plant may not have a brain, although, the entire system is strikingly like a human neural system. Suzanne Simard, author of Finding the Mother Tree, shares her findings from many her explorations, focused on studying the connections of plants. Her biggest finding was about Douglas-fir trees, or “Mother Trees.” Without the Mother Trees, the entire ecosystem would collapse. Their roots are a large source of nutrients for the surrounding environment. It’s the network it creates that is truly incredible. Simard says during one expedition:

I made a map, Mother Trees, saplings, seedlings. Lines sketched between them. Emerging from my drawing was a pattern like a neural network, like the neurons in our brain, with some nodes more highly linked than others. Holy smokes. If the mycorrhizal network is a facsimile of a neural network, the molecules moving among the trees were like neurotransmitters.

Simard continues to debate the abilities of plants after making the astounding discovery. She wonders of the limit of their intelligence, and how identical the network really is to the human brain. It opens a world of new questions and possibilities waiting to be discovered. With such an identical similarity, it’s possible the entire system could reach certain capacities of a human brain.

The behavior of plants and their potential for higher intelligence is in line with what people define as empathy. As bizarre as it sounds, plants match the characteristics we see as having empathy in humans. They each learn from past experiences and have a system of processing and sharing information, communicating what they learn. Both plant and human display acts of selflessness, sharing resources when they find one of their kind in harm. In both humans and plants, connections are used for the survival of the community. They help each other in order to have a thriving environment.

References

Holewinski, B. (n.d.). Underground networking: The amazing connections beneath your feet. National Forest Foundation. Retrieved 13 October 2022.

Ueda, H., Kikuta, Y., & Matsuda, K. (2012, February 1). Plant Communication: Mediated by individual or blended vocs? Plant signaling & behavior. Retrieved November 7, 2022

New Research on Plant Intelligence may forever change how you think about plants. The World from PRX. (2014, January 10). Retrieved November 7, 2022

Simard, S. (2022). Finding the mother tree. Random House US.