Plants "Recognize" Kin?

A new study suggests that plants will work to your advantage if you’re another plant and a family member.

Susan Dudley: Mostly we think about plants as passive, just the victims of their environment and just growing in response to the physical environment. But they actually actively sense and respond to the environment, including what is specifically the presence of other plants, and I think that’s a really neat thing.

That’s Susan Dudley, at McMaster University in Ontario. She’s a biologist and evolutionary plant ecologist, which means she wants to understand what about a plant makes it good at growing. Research in the past showed that plants can sense and respond to the presence of other plants. It made Dudley wonder if plants can recognize their own kin.

Plants are considered siblings if their seeds came from the same “mother” plant. Dudley studied the roots of plants growing in different living situations. She found that the plants living with other unrelated plants grew more roots to try to edge out the other plants for water and nutrients.

But those living alongside family were distinctly less aggressive. Their roots were the same as plants living alone, so it seems that competition among plants is less along family members.
- Earth & Sky