Plant intelligence: a case of mindless mastery

By: Anthony Trewavas

We encourage you to republish this article online and in print, it’s free under our creative commons attribution license, but please follow some simple guidelines:

You have to credit our authors.
You have to credit SciDev.Net — where possible include our logo with a link back to the original article.
You can simply run the first few lines of the article and then add: “Read the full article on SciDev.Net” containing a link back to the original article.
If you want to also take images published in this story you will need to confirm with the original source if you're licensed to use them.
The easiest way to get the article on your site is to embed the code below.

For more information view our media page and republishing guidelines.

The full article is available here as HTML.

Press Ctrl-C to copy

<div class="article-wrap">
<div id="article-introduction">
<h1>Plant intelligence: a case of mindless mastery</h1>
<h4>By: Anthony Trewavas</h4>
</div>
<br />
<br />

<div id="article-body">
<p>For centuries, plants have been regarded as passive creatures. Their development is thought to be predetermined, with only temporary interruptions in response to stress.<BR><BR>Because plants lack obvious visible movement, they seem to be bereft of behaviour and intelligence. <BR><BR>But Anthony Trewavas explores the complexity of plant behaviour and argues that if intelligence is defined as adaptively variable behaviour during the life of the individual, then plants are indeed ‘intelligent’ forms of life.<BR><BR>Reference: <em>Nature</em> 415, 841 (2002)<BR><BR><a href="http://www.nature.com/login/scidev_login.taf?ref=/nature/journal/v415/n6874/full/415841a_fs.html" target="_blank" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/tracking/external/'+this.href);" rel="noopener noreferrer">Link to full text</A></p>

</div>
<div class="quick-links-wrapper">
<h3>You might also like</h3>
[related-articles]
</div>
<p>This article was originally published on <a href="https://www.scidev.net" target="_blank">SciDev.Net</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.scidev.net/global/features/plant-intelligence-a-case-of-mindless-mastery/" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
<script type="text/javascript">
(function(e,t,n,r,i,s,o){e["GoogleAnalyticsObject"]=i;e[i]=e[i]||function(){(e[i].q=e[i].q||[]).push(arguments)},e[i].l=1*new Date;s=t.createElement(n),o=t.getElementsByTagName(n)[0];s.async=1;s.src=r;o.parentNode.insertBefore(s,o)})(window,document,"script","//www.google-analytics.com/ga.js","ga");var _gaq=_gaq||[];var _gaq=_gaq||[];_gaq.push(["_setAccount","UA-3223906-8"],["_trackEvent","article interaction","republished","https://www.scidev.net/global/features/plant-intelligence-a-case-of-mindless-mastery/",null,true])
</script>
</div>

For centuries, plants have been regarded as passive creatures. Their development is thought to be predetermined, with only temporary interruptions in response to stress.

Because plants lack obvious visible movement, they seem to be bereft of behaviour and intelligence.

But Anthony Trewavas explores the complexity of plant behaviour and argues that if intelligence is defined as adaptively variable behaviour during the life of the individual, then plants are indeed ‘intelligent’ forms of life.

Reference: Nature 415, 841 (2002)

Link to full text