Science fosters ongoing reassessments of plant capabilities

Abstract

It is suggestive that some plant features, like the absence of specialized sensory organs to detect various environmental stimuli and their sessile and autotrophic nature, may have influenced the historically limited interest in the comprehensive understanding of their capabilities. However, scientific evidence has progressively spurred changes in this scenario by revealing unexpected and astonishing capabilities of plants. The objective of this article is to explore significant scientific discoveries that have led to a complete reshaping of certain human perceptions of plant capabilities throughout history, as well as delve into the new findings that are currently remodeling our view of them in modern times. This is illustrated by outdated notions about their growth and sexual behavior that have been surpassed, as well as by current discoveries concerning plants' capacity to detect various environmental stimuli, even without specialized organs for such purposes. Following this trajectory of reshaping perceptions, we will delve into recent revelations about diverse mechanisms through which plants exchange specific and reliable information with the organisms they interact with. The article also discusses how certain discoveries made in the past few decades concerning memory and learning capacity contribute to dismantling the notion that plants operate solely through automated and linear behaviors triggered by stimuli. Furthermore, the article draws inferences about how these paradigm shifts in our understanding of plants impact on the resolution of longstanding gaps in comprehending biological phenomena, exemplified by somatic embryogenesis, as well as how they contribute to the advancement of new technologies for plant cultivation.