On-line control of movement in plants

Abstract

At first glance, plants seem relatively immobile and, unlike animals, unable to interact with the surroundings or escape stressful environments. But, although markedly different from those of animals, movement pervades all aspects of plant behaviour. Here, we focused our investigation on the approaching movement of climbing plants, that is the movement they perform to reach-to-climb a support. In particular, we examined whether climbing plants evolved a motor accuracy mechanism as to improve the precision of their movement and how this eventually differs from animal species. For this purpose, by means of three-dimensional kinematical analysis, we investigated whether climbing plants have the ability to correct online their movement by means of secondary submovements, and if their frequency production is influenced by the difficulty of the task. Results showed, not only that plants correct their movement in flight, but also that they strategically increase the production of secondary submovements when the task requires more precision, exactly as humans do. These findings support the hypothesis that the movement of plants is far cry from being a simple cause-effect mechanism, but rather is appropriately planned, controlled and eventually corrected.

Keywords: Motor accuracy; Plant cognition; Plants’ movement; Secondary submovements.