A Dutch university has shown that plants communicate through networks of 'runners'. This research team, headed by Josef Stuefer has been examining plants that spread through their environment and move by means of horizontal budding stems, called stolons. As anyone who has grown strawberries may have seen, a single plant sends out multiple horizontal stems, each of which can produce a clone of the first plant.
Thus a whole patch of strawberries, clover, or other plants, which appears to be many coexisting individuals is in fact a linked system of clones. Like the internet (and unlike airlines) this system of links does not have central hubs. It is an equally distributed network. The research, concluded this month, shows clover plants send an internal message to other plants when they are attacked by caterpillars. This causes intact plants to strengthen their existing defenses, making them less vulnerable to new attackers. While scientists have already isolated some proteins plants use to communicate internally, this breakthrough on external communication seems to be just the start of understanding plant social interaction.
Rene Descartes, in his Meditations of 1637 (the same work in which he suggested- "I think , therefore I am") claimed that the ability to use words to convey thoughts separated men from animals. Further study of animals (from primates to parrots) has revealed communication abilities. This prompts some to suggest that syntax, the ability to arrange words into specific orders with different meaning, separates human language from animal. Even this contention has been weakened by research on primate calls, indicating that calls are ordered, and that different orders have different meanings. The more we study non-human communication, the more, it seems, we are aware of our likeness to other organisms. What kind of resemblance do we see? We see the relationships we thought were unique to humans, are actually shared by many living organisms.
The more we study ecology, the more we realize the interconnectedness of living organisms. Plants too, must now join our conception of communicating entities. Does plants' ability to communicate imply consciousness? Plant sharing of information may imply the vital self-understanding that one possesses information worth sharing. How far is this insight from plant self-realization?
Regardless of philosophical issues, ecology is teaching us two lessons here. First, the important ways living things interrelate, but more importantly, our own paucity of understanding regarding that interrelation. When we debate appropriate action on this green planet, we should remember our ignorance.
