Study: Some Plants Recognize Their Siblings

June 20, 2007 — -- Don't look now, but that weed you just pulled out of your garden is a lot more sophisticated than you might think. It may even recognize its brothers and sisters, and it may change its own lifestyle just to give its kinfolk a better chance to survive.

New research shows that at least one species recognizes its kin, and becomes much more aggressive in soaking up resources if the guy growing next to it is a member of the same species, but a total stranger. But if it's a sibling, it backs off.

"We tend to think of plants as fairly passive, but in fact they are actively sensing other plants and responding," said biologist Susan A. Dudley of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, lead author of a study in the current issue of the Royal Society journal, Biology Letters.

Dudley and a student, Amanda File, collected seeds from Cakile edentula, an inconspicuous little plant that is common on the shores of the Great Lakes, and then carried out an elaborate experiment to see if plants grown from those seeds could actually recognize their siblings.

The answer, they say, is clearly yes -- at least as far as the "sea rocket" is concerned. If the work is confirmed by others, Cakile edentula could rewrite the textbooks on plant behavior.

For the record, no one is saying here that plants are clever creatures with lots of brainpower, but they apparently are a lot more complex than most of us think.

How the "sea rocket" responds to other plants, be they siblings or strangers, shows up mainly in the roots, Dudley told ABC News. If the neighbor is a stranger, the sea rocket puts much more of its energy into growing its roots, "snatching water and nutrients before the other plant can get them," she said. But if the other plant is a sibling, the sea rocket doesn't invest so much in its roots, leaving plenty of room for bro or sis to grow.

Pretty amazing, eh?

"Siblings were less competitive than strangers, which is consistent with kin selection," the study reports.

The animal world has many examples of critters that interact socially with others, even recognizing their own kin but not the world of plants.