Study finds first evidence of risk-taking behavior in plants

A team from Oxford University alongside colleagues in Isreal recently found that pea plants are able to take risks– a characteristic previously unseen outside of the animal kingdom.  A full-text version of their study was recently published in the journal Current Biology.

The study split an individual pea plant’s roots between two different pots of soil, forcing the plant to prioritize root growth. When presented with an obviously superior high-nutrition soil choice, the plant sent roots into the nutrition-rich pot, which is a similar response to animals putting forth effort into a more lucrative foraging spot.

Researchers then split the roots into two different pots with equal average nutrition concentrations but differing nutrition levels– one with a constant nutrition level, and one with a variable nutrition level. The researchers then created a model based on how a human or an animal would make such a decision.

They thought the plants would prefer the variable pot when the average nutrition level was low (making a risky decision for a potential reward) and prefer the constant pot when the average nutrition level was high (staying risk-averse due to existing safety). Their predictions turned out to be correct.

Their predictions turned out to be correct.

First evidence of risky behavior in plants

Professor Alex Kacelnik, a co-author of the study and a professor in the Department of Zoology at Oxford University stated that “to their knowledge” this is the first evidence of risk-taking behavior in an organism without a nervous system.

“We do not conclude that plants are intelligent in the sense used for humans or other animals, but rather that complex and interesting behaviors can theoretically be predicted as biological adaptations – and executed by organisms – on the basis of processes evolved to exploit natural opportunities efficiently,” stated Kacelnik to Phys.org.

Study author and master’s student Efrat Dener from Ben Gurion University, Israel stated: “Like most people, including even experienced farmers and gardeners, I used to look at plants as passive receivers of circumstances. These experiments illustrate how incorrect that view is: living organisms are designed by natural selection to exploit their opportunities, and this often implies a great deal of flexibility.”

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Image credit: Thinkstock

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