MSNBC, October 20, 2009
Plants can’t see or hear, but they can recognize their siblings, and now researchers have found out how: They use chemical signals secreted from their roots, according to a new study.
Back in 2007, Canadian researchers discovered that a common seashore plant, called a sea rocket, can recognize its siblings—plants grown from seeds from the same plant, or mother. They saw that when siblings are grown next to each other in the soil, they “play nice” and don’t send out more roots to compete with one another.
But as soon as one of the plants is thrown in with strangers, it begins competing with them by rapidly growing more roots to take up the water and mineral nutrients in the soil.
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“Plants have no visible sensory markers, and they can’t run away from where they are planted,” Harsh Bais, assistant professor of plant and soil sciences at the University of Delaware, said in a statement. “It then becomes a search for more complex patterns of recognition.”
Bais and doctoral student Meredith Biedrzycki set up a study with wild populations of Arabidopsis thaliana, a small flowering plant that is often used as a model organism in plant research.
They wanted to use wild populations instead of laboratory-bred species, because the latter “always has cousins floating around in the lab,” Bais said.
In a series of experiments, young seedlings were exposed to liquid containing the root secretions, called “exudates,” from siblings, from strangers (non-siblings), or only their own exudates.
The length of the longest lateral root and of the hypocotyl, the first leaf-like structure that forms on the plant, were measured. A lateral root is a root that extends horizontally outward from the primary root, which grows downward.
Plants exposed to strangers had greater lateral root formation than the plants that were exposed to siblings.
Further, when sibling plants grow next to each other, their leaves will often touch and intertwine, while stranger plants near each other grow rigidly upright and avoid touching, the authors say.
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“It’s possible that when kin are grown together, they may balance their nutrient uptake and not be greedy,” Bais speculates.
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The study, funded in part by the National Science Foundation, will be published in the January/February 2010 issue of the journal Communicative & Integrative Biology.
Original article
(Posted on October 22, 2009)
Comments
This is simply fantastic! Science is on the cusp of unraveling the origins of Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, and many other Democrat pols.
This story reminds me of one of Maggy Thatcher’s finest ripostes.
When Lady Thatcher was asked for her preference she replied, “I’ll have the beef.”
When the waiter inquired, “And the vegetables, madam?” she looked around table and replied, “They’ll have the beef, too.”
Oh, my! Racist, nativist plants! Shouldn’t there be some sort of Federal eradication program for such species? After all, are we going to tolerate racism still in this country?
This just in: Morris Dees and the SPLC have now included plants on their Hatewatch list.
It is bad enough there are intolerant animal rights fanatics who claim animals are not ours to eat, wear, or experiment on, like Ingrid Newkirk PETA, and do whatever they can to impose their extremist views on the rest of us.
What is next, plant rights fanatics who claim plants are not ours to cultivate and eat? If plant rights fanatics get their way, what are decent vegetarians, like Paul McCartney, to do, starve from not being able eat food directly made from plants, like rice, beans, or tofu!?
Ross:
Boulder, Colorado has a vegetable rights organization, at least of several years ago. That was mentioned in passing in an article I read about how certain places are becoming parodies of themselves, i.e. Boulder was already left-wing b/c of the U., so this drew libs like a magnet. More libs make the place even crazier libs, which attracts crazier libs. On and on it goes.
Apparently,as far as science is concerned, plants do not even have the most rudimentary sense of ‘consciousness’, being bereft of anything that remotely resembles a central nervous system and nerve ganglia.
So basically, plants have more sense than liberals.
So what is the address of the foremost plant psychiatrist that can address this problematic issue of stranger plants not wanting to touch each other and straighten them out?
This is clearly a matter of utmost urgency, and must have millions more dollars spent on studying it. Where can I apply?
I saw a science program on television, perhaps a dozen years ago, about the growth of plants. It was absolutely fascinating. It showed time-lapse photography, speeded up, of plants apparently growing harmoniously in a garden. But when speeded up, it revealed them struggling with one another for space and light, trying to strangle one another and crowd their contenders out.
It did not address the question of related plants vs. strangers. But any gardner knows that there are some plants which will grow peacefully in the same plot, while there are other plants that refuse to grow together (sort of like cats and dogs in the same cage), and even those that will poison each other. Quite amazing.
This is some article! It suggests that plants have considerably greater ability to recognise patterns and entities in the outside world than many human(?) bureaucrats, journalists, and Federal judges. At least they can percieve friend from foe, perceive like from unlike, and don’t confuse very real differences with sameness or equality.
Maybe we would do better with tomatos, pickles, and apples on the Supreme Court, EEOC staff, and the Congressional committees dealing with so-called discrimination. At least then our White ability to work with fellow whites and exclude nonwhites won’t be compromised by an egalitarian legal system run amok…
PEACE AND FREEDOM!!
PS- I notice that there were no “renegade” vegetables calling their fellows “racists” for sensing differences accurately.
To GHW,
I am an amateur botanist. Yes, it is very true that some plants indeed extrude poisons from their roots in order to destroy competition from other plants. Plant life native to the region will die,never to return, or at least it becomes very difficult to re-establish, and their former place is lost,usually for good. The exotic plant in question will then be able to thrive, although the ecosystem will be forever changed. One invasive exotic from China that does this is the well known Tree of Heaven,the weedy tree seen in just about any city. It looks like Sumac. Ailanthus is the Latin name. Its invasive quality is why it is not planted in the countryside. We know what will happen when it is introduced. Do some fast searches on invasive exotics and you will see.
Now, when I was a young and inexperienced gardener, I admired Ailanthus, never knowing about its horrible side. But, after awhile, after I planted some, I found out. By then, it was far too late. You see, once introduced into the land, it is almost impossible to eliminate. Even if cut down, it sprouts back over and over from its roots, remaining forever a problem.Forever, the land is changed. Forever. This is very true of many, many invasive exotics.Kudzu and bittersweet vine are 2 more examples. They were introduced because they were seen as exotic, attractive alternatives that were a change from what we already had available for ornamentals.Sometimes,too, they were used because they were thought to work better or easier at a particular task then the plants we already had growing here. Once itroduced, we found out that they were just hidden problems that led to far worse problems in the landscape.
Now, read all that again. Think about this analogy.
Anateur Botanist: Very interesting about the obnoxious Ailanthus tree. Yes, it have seen it growing through mere cracks in the sidewalk and even between bricks in a wall. It is a determined weed and impossible to control. I had not known it poisoned its rivals. I recall a building where I once lived where it was growing up through cracks between the sidewalk and the wall, and all around the parking lot. It was flourishing in the most improbable places. The janitor would repeatedly chop it back and try to pull it out, but year after year it just kept growing back again! One has to marvel at such persistence. It just wouldn’t take a hint and go!
