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Smarty plants? Controversial plant-intelligence studies explored in new book

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The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth Zoë Schlanger Harper (2024)

During the COVID-19 pandemic, while people were tucked away in their homes, a love for house plants spread at the same time as the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Journalist Zoë Schlanger was one of the people drawn to plants. Having spent years reporting on climate change and environmental pollution, as well as its associated health effects, she wanted to engage with something “that felt wonderful and alive”. In The Light Eaters, Schlanger puts her unabashed fascination with plants on full display, as she asks whether these organisms are, in their own way, intelligent.

Schlanger begins by discussing the effect of the controversial 1973 book The Secret Life of Plants, in which Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird proposed that “plants are living, breathing, communicating creatures, endowed with personality and the attributes of soul”. The book garnered wide public interest but was viewed with distain by many botanists and plant scientists, who considered it pseudoscience. As a result, many researchers became wary of studying plant awareness and behaviour.

Other, more-cautious studies have popped up since. Schlanger vividly outlines how Peruvian botanist Ernesto Gianoli, for instance, has found that the vine Boquila trifoliolata can change the shape of its leaves to mimic those of neighbouring plants, perhaps to prevent herbivores from eating it. Plant scientist Heidi Appel and biologist Rex Cocroft have shown how vibrations along plant leaves — triggered by caterpillars chewing on them — lead to the plant producing defensive chemicals. And botanist Simon Gilroy tells Schlanger about how plants respond to physical stimulation. For example, injury to the roots triggers waves of electrical activity that allow plants to sense and avoid physical obstacles in the soil. Schlanger’s well-crafted descriptions provide a rare and welcome glimpse into the humanity and dedication of botanists.

Nonetheless, the author finds that the concepts of plant intelligence, sentience, consciousness and agency are still anathema to most plant scientists. “I began to learn what to say — or, more accurately, not say — to keep a scientist on the phone,” she notes.

Ultimately, Schlanger concludes that plants are creative and intelligent, even if their intelligence is distinct from that of humans.

As a plant scientist, I am fascinated by what draws us to wanting to define plants as sentient or conscious — or not — through the lens of our limited human understanding of those terms. I agree with Schlanger that plants are aware, responsive and communicative. I also think that human consciousness is neither the beginning nor the end of a definition of consciousness in our vast and complex Universe. In this, my opinions differ from those of others in the field, who are more dogmatic about the definitions of consciousness and intelligence.

Evolving ideas

In places, Schlanger’s assertions are likely to rile researchers. The author notes, for instance, that “no one quite knows what a plant really is”. True, there’s still much to learn about plants and what they are capable of, but few botanists or plant scientists would suggest they don’t know what plants are. And her description of botany as “a field in true turmoil” lacks nuance. Vigorous debates about competing hypotheses and conflicting data are part of a healthy scientific ecosystem.

Part of the challenge, I think, is that Schlanger’s understanding of plant science is still growing and could be refined by engaging with a broader range of literature. The author often presents the findings of a single article or researcher as a general principle. For example, the idea that plants can ‘hear’ caterpillars chewing on them is a phenomenon that has mainly been reported by one research team.

A Monarch butterfly caterpillar in lush foliage in a natural habitat.

A caterpillar chewing on leaves could trigger a plant’s defence system.Credit: Getty

And at times, she seems overly committed to championing an enthralling idea rather than facts for which hard evidence is available. Take work by plant scientist Monica Gagliano, whose studies some researchers have suggested are flawed. One, for instance, showed that peas can learn to associate the sound of water flowing through a pipe with a need to reorient their growth towards the water source — but sound can cause physical vibrations in the air that can be sensed as touch. Thus, whether the plants were responding strictly to the sound of water or to physical vibrations remains unresolved. Schlanger suggests that Gagliano’s study design “may have been faulty, but her ideas were good”. Yet scientists by and large want good ideas to be paired with a solid experimental design, to ensure that the research has biologically sound underpinnings.

The author sometimes falls into the trap of assuming that topics that have recently become trendy are ‘new’. Yet it is relatively common for scientific phenomena to be proposed tens or even hundreds of years before researchers have the techniques and technologies needed to detect them. The ‘language of scent’ is a good example of this. Researchers are now uncovering molecular details about how plants produce, detect and respond to ‘volatile organic compounds’. But the idea that these compounds have key roles in pollination and other processes was first proposed in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries by naturalists Christian Konrad Sprengel, Charles Darwin and others (R. Delle-Vedove et al. Ann. Bot. 120, 1–20; 2017).

Similarly, the idea that plants exchange information with others in their community has been around since the early 1980s (I. T. Baldwin and J. C. Schultz Science 221, 277–279; 1983). I wish that Schlanger had acknowledged this more often, because I worry that scientific communities’ tendency to erroneously say that they are the first to report a phenomenon can make it hard for the general public to trust researchers.

Nonetheless, The Light Eaters overflows with the author’s infectious enthusiasm. Plant lovers will find much of interest in the Schlanger’s inspiring tale of where her curious mind has led her. I, too, try to lead with enthusiasm when communicating plant science. Although we might not agree on everything, in Schlanger I’ve found a kindred spirit.

Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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Bird-flu threat disrupts Antarctic penguin studies

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Brown Skua, Stercorarius antarcticus, calling in front of a King Penguin colony.

Avian flu has been detected sub-Antarctic king penguins.Credit: Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty

A deadly strain of bird flu circulating worldwide is disrupting research in Antarctica and could lead to the cancellation of some projects to study penguins, seals and other animals next year.

“This is the first time I remember such reduced access to animal colonies since I started my Antarctic career in 1996,” says microbiologist Antonio Quesada del Corral, who manages the Spanish Antarctic research programme and is based in Madrid.

“Several projects were cancelled this year, because we wanted to reduce the risk of having an infection of people or being the vector that spreads sickness between different animal colonies,” he says. “We had scheduled for next year more new projects on animal colonies — some of these are now likely not going to take place.”

Researchers first detected avian influenza, caused by the circulating H5N1 subtype of the virus, in the wider Antarctic region in October 2023. They found the virus in dead birds, including skuas and gulls, in the sub-Antarctic territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.

This sparked fears among scientists that bird flu would soon reach Antarctica itself. “We were very afraid,” says Quesada del Corral. As a result, he says, the Spanish Antarctic research programme was revised for the summer season, which runs from around October to late March. Since then, only researchers specializing in infectious diseases and viruses have been allowed access to animal colonies, he adds. In the sub-Antarctic, the virus is known to have spread to elephant and fur seals, albatrosses, terns, gentoo penguins and king penguins, suggesting that these animals are also at risk in Antarctica.

Data disruption

Researchers involved in about half a dozen projects have been unable to collect data from sensors that are located in animal colonies and gather information year-round, says Quesada del Corral. “We had several projects that needed to download information from some sensors [located] in colonies of penguins, sea lions, elephant seals, leopard seals — and they were not able to go in there.”

Some of these long-term projects aim to monitor animal behaviour — for example, to determine when penguins hatch, moult and move to or from a rookery. Others aim to track the impacts of the animals on the environment, or to sample bacteria in aerosols produced by the colonies.

In theory, data collected by sensors could still be retrievable next year. “The memory of the sensors is normally about two years,” says Quesada del Corral. “We usually change the battery every year. Hopefully next year they will have at least partial data collected.”

But there is a chance that the batteries will fail, or that restrictions could tighten. “I really am afraid that next year the season is going to be worse than this,” he adds.

The activities of Argentine researchers have also been disrupted by bird flu, says Martín Ansaldo, an ecologist at the Argentine Antarctic Institute in Buenos Aires. “We suspended all activities that had direct contact with animals, wherever we observed animals with unusual behaviour or an unusual increase in the number of dead,” he says. This affected scientists studying the reproduction, behaviour and physiology of birds and mammals.

Research carried out under the US Antarctic Program has not yet been disrupted by bird flu, according to the National Science Foundation (NSF), which funds the programme. Nonetheless, “it is possible that any future outbreak detected could impact research”, an NSF spokesperson told Nature. “Decisions will be made on a case-by-case basis.”

Tip of the iceberg

Researchers’ fears were confirmed in February, when H5N1 was detected on the Antarctic mainland for the first time. The virus was found in dead skuas near Argentina’s Primavera research station, located on the Antarctic Peninsula, which stretches north towards South America. “With this confirmation, we know that the infection can reach any colony in a few days,” says Quesada del Corral.

Scientists have just started a new expedition to sample for bird flu on the Antarctic Peninsula, says Antonio Alcamí, a virologist based at the Severo Ochoa Centre for Molecular Biology in Madrid, who was among those who first detected H5N1 on the mainland.

Monitoring the spread of the virus will help to protect researchers on Antarctica. “The confirmation of H5N1 [on the mainland] generated an early warning to take extreme care of the people working in Antarctica, both logistical and scientific,” says Ansaldo. “We must be prepared to protect both the Antarctic fauna and the human beings working there.”

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