Rooting For Swarm Intelligence in Plants

            In this article, Susan Milius discusses the recent findings of František Baluška from the University of Bonn in Germany. The main idea of the article that that roots may have swarm intelligence because of the various amounts information that proves they can work as a group. Swarm intelligence is mainly found in animals, and it is their ability to work together as a group to solve problems and make their living environment better. Honeybees are a usual example of an animal that uses swarm intelligence in order to find a new home.

             

          Baluška believes that roots could have swarm intelligence for many reasons. It is believed that root tips gather information individually, and then that information gets processed. When the roots are tangled with each other, the information gets shared. Therefore, when a problem exists, the roots can fix it together with cognitive intelligence instead of a lone root struggling to solve its own problem. “Applying the notion of swarm intelligence to plants, and not just to animals,” Krause (another scientist) says, “is interesting in the sense that swarm intelligence might provide a drive for group living in organismal life in general.”

Baluška believes the best evidence of swarm intelligence comes from the roots’ ability to bombard areas high in nutrients. Roots also swarm areas with water. Roots from the same plant compete with roots from other plants for these nutrients, and therefore it would make sense for roots to have root intelligence so the roots of the same plant could help each other.

 
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/67424/title/Rooting_for_swarm_intelligence_in_plants

posted for N. Carpenter