Insufficient evidence for habituation in Mimosa pudica. Response to Gagliano et al. (2014)

Abstract

Gagliano et al. (Oecologia 175(1):63–72, 2014) reported that Mimosa pudica habituates to repeated stimulation, as shown by a reduction in response, dishabituation, and stimulus specificity. I argue that Gagliano et al.’s data show an absence of dishabituation, that their experimental design needs an additional condition to test whether there is stimulus specificity, and that most of their data can be explained by motor fatigue. Some data are not easily explained by fatigue, and I suggest a further analysis that may clarify the issue. The status of habituation in Mimosa remains uncertain.