The Memories of Plants

The Memories of Plants(atlasobscura.com)

109 points by raleec 8 years ago | 33 comments

cwkoss 8 years ago |

I wonder to what extent cuttings are effected by these epigenetic memories?

Ex.

- Grow plant A. Expose it to stimuli to make it form a 'memory'

- Take a cutting from plant A and root it, making plant B.

- Test plant B for response to the stimulus.

Does plant B have the memory? If so, how many cutting-generations does it take for the memory to decay?

seszett 8 years ago | |

There's probably no reason cuttings should be different than a whole plant as they don't have any fundamental difference. Unless the roots themselves have an importance in the process (since the cuttings will then grow new "inexperienced" roots) but I doubt it.

I'm more intrigued by what would happen with grafts.

Does rootstock transmit memories ("memories") to a scion, does a scion transmit memories to rootstock, does it work with interspecific grafts, does it work with intergeneric grafts? Do multiple scions transmit memories between each other?

pvaldes 8 years ago | | |

> There's probably no reason cuttings should be different than a whole plant

Its uncommon, but it happens sometimes... and there can be in fact a fundamental difference: different hormone gradient. A well known case is with ivy. If you take cuttings on flowered stems of common ivy, the new plants retain the rombic leaf shape typical of reproductive stems and the effect last for the life of this first leaves. The ivy born from seeds do not have this rombic leaves until many years later, when they mature.

> Does rootstock transmit "memories" to a scion

Not, because memories are stored in neurons and plants do not have this, but is a well known fact also that rootstock can change the scion behaviour (for example improving the sugar in fruits and advancing the age of first maturation). If you change 'memories' by 'chemicals', the answer could be yes, of course. It depends on the definition of what could be loosely called as 'memory' in a plant.

hluska 8 years ago | |

That's very interesting and I'm going to search for answers to this! Thanks for this comment.

asciimo 8 years ago |

A surprisingly common argument against veganism is "but plants feel pain, too," based on interpretations of articles such as this one on Vice [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xd74nd/we-asked-a-botanis...]. I suppose the argument is that, if there is any amount of cruelty in our consumption, then we may as well surrender to this fact and eat whatever we want. (Also, haha vegans are dumb.) I'm sure this study will be added as support for this perspective.

But it should be obvious that even if plants were proven to be sentient, vegans would continue to eat them. Our primary directive on this planet is to survive, just like every other organism. Once that's settled we can focus on doing so with as little suffering as possible, to the best of our ability.

damnfine 8 years ago | |

And the Vegan shows up! I kid, but the stereotype really holds true all too often.

The unsaid assumption in your comment, that I disagree with, is that harvesting animals causes anymore suffering than caring for and harvesting plants (in a humane manner, which admittedly, many facotry farms fail at on either side.)

gertef 8 years ago | | |

How does harvesting animals cause less suffering, in the real world we live in? The usual answer is "well IF you are friends with your cow/chicken and give it lots of pasture and then you squeeze it for milk occasionally and one day quickly and painlessly end its life, then its humane" but then motte-and-bailey--style that gets used to excuse a diet full of factory-farmed meat and chicken trucks and forcibly-impregnating cows and then seizing and killing their newborns[1], which is the vast vast majority of meat consumption.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=chicken+trucks&source=lnms&t...

[2] https://www.ciwf.com/farm-animals/cows/dairy-cows/

pkkim 8 years ago | | |

Harvesting animals also requires harvesting plants, for animal feed. It takes a lot more plant matter to create 1000 Calories worth of beef than of any plant-based food, probably around ten times more based on the amount of food energy required / food energy provided of meat.

interfixus 8 years ago | | |

> And the Vegan shows up! I kid, but the stereotype really holds true all too often

And the meat-man with a vengeance shows up. I kid you not, this stereotype holds true all too often. And, may I add, puzzles me absolutely no end. What is it about some people's restrictive dietary choices that regularly sets off these spasms of all too vocal disapproval in the minds of certain people?

I do not, as a general rule, eat meat. The predictable uninvited spluttering opinions on that quite unremarkable situation are beginning to get really old. Please!

self_assembly 8 years ago | | |

> The unsaid assumption in your comment, that I disagree with, is that harvesting animals causes anymore suffering than caring for and harvesting plants (in a humane manner, which admittedly, many facotry farms fail at on either side.)

Couldn't you argue that since in order to harvest animals you must harvest plants for the animals to eat. So definitely more suffering is produced by harvesting animals. This is amplified even more so when you consider that you have to harvest more plants for producing meat than you would if you just ate the plants.

EGreg 8 years ago | | |

There are other factors too including carcinogens in meat

http://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/past-debates/it...

toomanybeersies 8 years ago | |

Well you could become a fungitarian I guess? You'd really struggle to get enough calories purely from fungus though, I guess you could get a decent amount from algae if you build some nice large algae reactors to feed you.

AnimalMuppet 8 years ago | | |

I've thought about plankton. You ought to be able to make a pretty nourishing stew out of (the right varieties of) plankton.

Note well: I have no idea how restrictive a subset "the right varieties" is, nor how hard it is to obtain plankton that are only from that subset.

njarboe 8 years ago | |

Most calories from plants come from plants that have already died. Corn, wheat, soybean, etc. Maybe stop eating greens if this bothers you. Nice firm lettuce is quite alive when you eat it.

eponeponepon 8 years ago |

A little off-topic, but since Atlas Obscura crops up here fairly often, I'd just like to say that their book's a very pleasant thing to own, if you're into coffee-table books at all. I bought it on a whim after seeing an ad on the site, and I'm quite enjoying picking through it in fits and starts. Nothing in it that isn't on the site as far as I'm aware, but sometimes a laptop just doesn't cut the mustard for leisure reading.

X86BSD 8 years ago | |

Seconded, it really is a nice, as you said, coffee table book. It's just really nice to pick up and read briefly while waiting for the wife to get ready or when you have moments of brief leisure.

AstralStorm 8 years ago |

Interestingly enough, a similar chromatin-based mechanism could be responsible for long term memories in animals. If that is the case, this could mean interesting times for, say, cryonics or even psychiatry.

randomdrake 8 years ago |

If plants having memories is something that interests you, then you should also check out this recently (2017/05) published study:

Temperature variability is integrated by a spatially embedded decision-making center to break dormancy in Arabidopsis seeds

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1704745114

In short, it shows a seed having binary decision-making areas that communicate with each other to determine the best outcome for survival.

From the paper:

"Both plants and animals make decisions in response to the environment to maximize their fitness. Plants use dormancy in seeds to move through time and space, and timing of the transition to germination is influenced by external cues, including temperature. Here, we report the presence of a decision-making center within the root tip of dormant seeds and demonstrate that it shares a similar configuration as some systems within the human brain. Unlike in humans, where this spatial structure is used to filter out noisy inputs from the environment, seeds use this arrangement to harness fluctuating temperatures and stimulate the termination of dormancy. Variable inputs therefore act as an instructive signal for seeds, enhancing the accuracy with which plants are established in ecosystems."

Abishek_Muthian 8 years ago |

"Monica Gagliano began to study plant behavior because she was tired of killing animal"

Considering she still calls plants 'he' & dedicated her life to study them, I wonder what's her current perspective on the above statement. The article does mention abusing plants as part of the study, does this mean the scientists themselves feel it's less violent. Since it's proven that the plants react to stimulus, how do they convince themselves that they aren't hurting the plants.

anfractuosity 8 years ago |

That's really fascinating about the Mimosa pudica responding differently to being dropped after a while.

Interestingly along with Venus fly traps, their movement response can also be triggered with electricity.

burnte 8 years ago | |

Considering that it all boils down to ions moving to trigger various actions, it's not surprising that electricity could trigger it. That's a good way to get anything with muscles to move, too. :)

anfractuosity 8 years ago | | |

Heh, that's true.

As far as I know though, you can't force the venus fly trap or mimosa to open it's leaves again via electricity.

I think with the mimosa iirc, strong bright light can open it's leaves though.