By using the same experimental framework normally applied to test learnt behavioral responses in animals, biologists from Australia and Italy have successfully demonstrated that Mimosa pudica – an exotic herb native to South America and Central America – can learn and remember just as well as it would be expected of animals.
![Mimosa pudica at the Botanical Garden KIT, Karlsruhe, Germany. Image credit: H. Zell / CC BY-SA 3.0.](https://i0.wp.com/cdn4.sci-news.com/images/2014/01/image_1695-Mimosa-pudica.jpg)
Mimosa pudica at the Botanical Garden KIT, Karlsruhe, Germany. Image credit: H. Zell / CC BY-SA 3.0.
Mimosa pudica is known as the Sensitive plant or a touch-me-not. Dr Monica Gagliano from the University of Western Australia and her colleagues designed their experiments as if Mimosa was indeed an animal.
They trained Mimosa‘s short- and long-term memories under both high and low-light environments by repeatedly dropping water on them using a custom-designed apparatus.
The scientists show how Mimosa plants stopped closing their leaves when they learnt that the repeated disturbance had no real damaging consequence.
The plants were able to acquire the learnt behavior in a matter of seconds and as in animals, learning was faster in less favorable environment.
Most remarkably, these plants were able to remember what had been learned for several weeks, even after environmental conditions had changed.
Reblogged this on Johnsono ne'Blog'as.
Reblogged this on Spirit In Action and commented:
Thank you for sharing this! I’m so glad to see people finally catching up to the fact that all life is smarter and more aware than western culture believes. The mycelium in the forest transmits for miles the information that someone steps on it entering the edge if the forest. Aside from the faces, talking and walking around perhaps Tolkien’s Ents are not really that far off from reality after all:-)
It was my pleasure 🙂
I think it is high time that people understand that all living things are connected to source. They live they breathe and they feel. In different ways depending on the species, but they live nonetheless. If more people understood this , I think the world would be in better condition. They would respect and protect all life. Let ‘s hope we live to see that understanding in our lifetime 😀
Thank you for the re-blog 🙂
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Reblogged this on Lolathecur's Blog.