Study: Plants Recognize Siblings

Plants, as we all know, are living organisms that add to the wonderful nature of Mother Earth. But who would have thought that plants can recognize their own siblings?

According to Live Science, Susan Dudley of McMaster University in Canada has researched this marvel and has concluded that this phenomenon is indeed true. Plants can actually recognize siblings and favor each other over outsider plants.

New studies show that unfamiliar plants compete against each other in a pot, while siblings are more considerate of each other. This recognition among pots of strangers and sibling plants draw interesting studies to this subject. While this kind of occurrence is common among animals, this is the foremost occasion that this has been observed within the interactions of plants. In the wild, animals also tend to have the ability to recognize and favor kin over others.

When plants are first potted, they branch out their roots to absorb water and nutrients. But when plants of the same species are potted together, it becomes a battle for valuable resources as each plant extends above and beyond to try to gather up the nutrients and water of other rival plants. This occurs within stranger plants, but when the plants come from the same mother plant and are technically siblings, they become very considerate of each other, and allow each other ample root space.

Susan Dudley's studies suggest that because interactions between the plants only occurred when the root space was limited within the pot, root interactions are most likely how the plants relate to each other. Though plants lack thinking ability and memory, the study shows that plants are still capable of what we humans classify as complex social behaviors, such as selflessness.

Though Dudley only observed this in the behavior of sea rocket (Cakile edentula), a member of the mustard family that grows on the beaches throughout North America, this occurrence is very likely applicable to other plants. Her findings, published in the June 12 issue of Biology Letters, detail the sociable interactions between plants.

These social connections that plants make have been known to gardeners for some time, but only now are researchers applying this wonder from a scientific standpoint. To Dudley, "The more we know about plants, the more complex their interactions seem to be."

The analogous connection between plants and humans reveal that we are not so different from nature and Mother Earth. The interactions between plants draws a likeness to the seating at a dinner party, where certain plants are mixed with other plants, and different people are seated with other people and interactions whether favorable or not, occur within the social scene.

Andrea Thompson. "Plants Recognize Siblings." Live Science. http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/070614_plant_siblings.html