Do plants see the world around them?

The concept of the "seeing plant" was pushed to the margins at the beginning of the 20th century. But in recent years it has been on the rise again

A white dresser. New works have shown that some plants such as white sedum, a relative of cabbage and mustard, produce proteins that participate in the development and function of light-sensitive organelles, the most basic eyes found in single-celled organisms such as green algae. Photo: Dawid Skalec / Wikimedia.
New works have shown that some plants such as white sedum (pictured), a relative of cabbage and mustard, produce proteins that participate in the development and function of light-sensitive organelles, the most basic eyes found in single-celled organisms such as green algae. Photo: Dawid Skalec / Wikimedia.

By Marta Zarska, the article is published with the permission of Scientific American Israel and the Ort Israel Network 12.03.2017

Don't look away now, but that tree may be watching you. Some new lines of research suggest that plants are able to see, and that they even have something similar to an eye, albeit of a very simple structure.

To some extent, the idea that plants may have "eyes" is not new. Already in 1907 hair Francis Darwin, Charles' son, who has organelles that are a combination of lens-like cells and light-sensitive cells. It seems that experiments conducted at the beginning of the 20th century confirmed that such structures, called today mesh, do exist, but the concept of "seeing plants" was pushed to the margins, until it resurfaced a few years ago.

In one The last issues of the journal Trends in Plant Sciences, retired Frantisek Balushka, a plant cell biologist at the University of Bonn in Germany, andStefano Mancuso A plant physiologist at the University of Florence in Italy, new evidence for visual awareness in plants. To substantiate their claims, the researchers brought as an example A discovery from 2016 which she bruises the type species Synechocystis, single-celled organisms that carry out photosynthesis, act like eyes. "These blue cells use the entire cell body as a lens that focuses the cell membrane upon the arrival of the light source, like in the retina of animals," says Conrad Molyneux, a microbiologist from the University of London who participated in the discovery. Although researchers do not know for sure what the purpose of this mechanism is, its very existence suggests that a similar mechanism has also developed in more developed plants. "If something like this exists at the lowest level of evolution, it will most likely be preserved [further on]," says Blushka.

New works have also shown that some plants like A white dresser, a relative of cabbage and mustard, produces proteins that participate in the development and function of light-sensitive organelles, the most basic eyes found in unicellular organisms such as green algae. These proteins appear uniquely in the so-called structures Plastoglobulus, which give the autumn leaves their red and orange hues. "This discovery suggests that these structures in the plant can act as light-sensitive organelles," says Belushka.

Other observations reveal that plants have visual abilities that we do not yet understand. for example, In the article Published in 2014 in the journal Current Biology, it was reported thatBucilla tripoliolata, a species of climbing vine, is able to adjust its height so that the colors and shapes of the plant on which it climbs are played.

Although the evidence for eye-like structures in terrestrial plants is still limited in scope, it is increasing. "I had never heard of plant vision and I might have dismissed this possibility as unlikely until I discovered for myself that cyanobacteria act as a camera lens," says biotechnologist Nils Schorgers, one of the authors of the 2016 cyanogenetic study. The next challenge is to confirm the findings from the experiments conducted at the beginning of the 20th century that showed that plant cells can act as lenses. Researchers still need to fully understand all the ways plants use their raw vision.

Good to know: the roots of plants' intelligence - Stefano Mancuzzo's lecture

Comments

  1. Lesbadramish
    Maybe you meant to joke but you got a mistake
    The tree produces the fruit on purpose so that they will eat it, this is the tree's method of spreading its fruit.
    That's why the fruit is sweet and tasty and fragrant and appetizing.
    There are indeed very extreme vegetarians who eat only ripe fruit.
    I personally know vegetarians who oppose the uprooting of plants and therefore do not eat roots, sprouts, etc., but do eat leaves and fruits, for example. There are those who eat honey and there are those who claim that eating honey is robbing the bee and exploiting it... and so on
    That's why I constantly claim that there is no such thing as a clear and sharp definition of "vegetarian" or "vegetarian", but there is a very wide spectrum of people who limit their eating for emotional / conscientious / religious reasons... and the boundaries are completely blurred.
    It is impossible to argue with them because it is an emotional and illogical issue, just as you cannot convince a religious person that there is no difference between kosher and non-kosher meat.
    On the other hand, with those who limit themselves for health or environmental reasons, etc., the facts can be debated.
    The problem is that most of these vegetarians hide the truth behind their real reason, which is only emotional, and in order to convince others to repent of their faith, they hang half-truths on false facts... just like religious converts who try to convince you by contradicting scientific teachings such as evolution, etc.

  2. Lorem Ipsum
    An example of what you are asking for is given in the body of the article
    A species of climbing vine is shown on which they adapt themselves to the color and shape of the plant they are climbing.

  3. The article is interesting. And to all vegetarians and vegans I say only one thing: let the fruits live!, don't think that mother banana likes you to eat her fruits.
    Yehuda

  4. interpret sensitivity to light as a narrow lens,
    But call sensitivity to light "seeing"
    done only for the purpose of creating a "sensation"
    And the proof is the article itself and the discussion that will develop here
    Following the article and the comments…

  5. Describing something that can be interpreted as a lens and something that can be interpreted as something that is sensitive to light is not enough. You have to find and describe the mechanism that collects the information, the mechanism that interprets it and the mechanism that does something with it. Gods can be very simple and mechanistic, and in plants can have only a local effect, but you have to see the evolutionary advantage they give to their owners.

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