Tomatoes talk, birch trees learn – do plants have dignity? | Florianne Koechlin | TEDxZurich

Oh there have been great communicators here at TEDx Zurich but the best one of them all never has been on the stage yet and that's not me that this lovely little tomato plant so I want to tell you about the plant's amazing communication and networking skills and then look at possible consequences the plant communicates with fragrances so when a caterpillar attacks a leaf the plant starts to produce leaf toxins and at the same time she releases a cloud of fragrances to warn the neighboring Tomatoes so they can to start without defense the fragrances are methyl Jasmine aids scent well known in the perfume industry so the female researchers were told not to use Chanel 5 because it would have confused the tomatoes for us it's a lovely scent but for the tomatoes it means attention predators are attacking a little later on this tomato produces different scents and this time it is to attract beneficial insects for her defense and the amazing thing is that the tomato not only knows that she is being attacked but exactly who is attacking her if she is attacked by spider mites she produces a fragrance cocktail to attract predatory mites they eat the spider mites but if she is attacked by caterpillars she produces a slightly different cocktail of fragrances to attract parasitic wasps but how did the tomato plant know who is attacking her she can identify the saliva so the plant tastes the saliva of the insect and then produces a fragrance to attract the right bodyguard oh what a great feat of communication another example when a patrice are attacked or infested by caterpillars such as a small winter moth they release a fragrance cocktail to attract great teeth birds the birds smell the SOS signals of the attacked apple tree and thus find themselves a fat catch of caterpillars I was fascinated by this world of plants and I started a career as an author I visited many researchers and experts all through Europe and also in India Kenya and Egypt and of course also in past in my home town the researchers told me that all plants communicate with fragrances they warn each other of a coming danger they allow beneficial insects they send out SOS signals they even coordinate the behavior among themselves and their vocabulary is immense so far about the thousand fragrance compounds have been identified five to ten of which are common to all plants well plants can do more they can perceive about 20 environmental signals more than we humans like humans they can respond to smell taste touch sight and sound and like birds they sense electromagnetic waves and under the ground there is a communication - if you look at the forest you see individual trees an oak tree a fir a birch tree but if you look underground you see that the roots of the trees connect with fungi to build a huge vast dynamic net a net called micro Rissa which means funghi roots and greed in science this net is referred to as the www the wood white web instead of the worldwide web also most non forest plants build my career Nate's with fungi not visible force and research has shown the plants even exchange nutrients among themselves within within the micro reason it so in good mixed cultures as often seen in traditional agriculture plants could build something like a dynamic underground marketplace where plants with long roots contribute water to the net other ones nitrogen or phosphate or sugar compounds so it's a constant give-and-take within the plant community and sometimes it's a battle - for example marigolds they sweat a toxic substance through the roots into the net to impede other plants to grow and thus new studies showing the plants even exchange information through this net so it's like a internet under our feet knowing all this when I'm walking through a forest and there is a constant whispering and murmuring a whispering of fragrances I do not understand and under my feet there is a constant exchange of nutrients and information and knowing all this gives me a completely different feeling it's not me here isolated on three and three and three but there's a strong feeling that I'm too connected in this intricate web of life all around me plants can do more they remember past events and learn from experience well learning is a fuzzy concept one definition goes that learning occurs when a living being remembers a past event and can change later on its behavior accordingly well this tomato plant can do exactly that when attacked by a caterpillar she starts to produce leaf toxins we already know but the second time a few days later she can produce them much faster and more efficiently so she remembered the first attack and learned how to deal with it in a better way most plants perhaps all plants can do that birch trees were found to remember a past event for as long as four years I have trouble remembering something for four days and it's getting worse but for years well to sum up plants are by no means passive living automatons always reacting in the same way and following the genetic program while this notion is still held within the scientific community the country's two plants communicate above and below ground they engage in lively relationship with their peers in the environment they Harris although they build alliances they remember they learn and some scientists even think they're intelligent and philosophically speaking we could say a plant is not an object and they but rather a sensitive living being a she so the more we know the more I will pick our image of the plant is turned upside down question is what are the implications of these new insights I see mainly two first aren't we on the wrong track with agriculture shouldn't we use these insights for a better agro system we could warn plants with fragrances of a coming attack help them build micro returned's boost their immune system develop good mixed cultures or with wild flowers lure beneficial insect into the fields so it's the plants themselves that that offers a great hope for the future if we observe them carefully and help them develop their skills but by growing them in monocultures we deprive them on the social context and we utterly neglect the communication skills what about our relationship with plants does it matter I had ample opportunity to discuss this question in Switzerland because Switzerland the only country worldwide whose constitution maintains that the dignity of living beings has to be respected plants are living beings so they have a dignity but what does it mean the Swiss government came to the federal ethics committee on non-human biotechnology of which I was a member and asked us to clarify the meaning of dignity in regard to plants difficult but dignity could be a sign a metaphor the plants have a value of their own independent of human interests so if we look at plan as living automatons following a set program and only satisfying our interest in demands such a notion would be absurd it doesn't make sense but if we look at plants as excellent networkers even capable of subjective perceptions having a life of their own then it makes sense to say yes they have dignity so you know when we look at the animals for for a long time animals were regarded as soulless machines too and it was just in the last few decades that they escape this mechanistic trap and to die today society agrees yes animals have at least some dignity with plants we are miles away from this point so in the ethics committee we concentrated on the question whether we should respect plants out for their own sake independent of the usefulness that we could call dignity well in the end we agreed on one point plants should not be harmed in an arbitrary way arbitrary injury or destruction of a plant is a violation of their dignity but we couldn't agree on the arbitrary for some it meant the senseless speaking of a roadside down the lion for all of us I among them the total and massive industrialization of plants so after four years of discussion in 2008 it was we published the report and soon afterwards we received the Ig Nobel Prize for this report I G stands for ignoble it's a price for particular ridiculous research which makes people laugh and then later on think we were proud to receive this price and the member of our commission flew to Harvard to get it but that is just the very very beginning and convinced that we urgently need some limit against their total industrialization that we that we as humans have some responsibility to our plants and of course it doesn't mean that we should not eat cut grow mower graft plants or do research with them that is not the point similarly giving animals some dignity didn't mean we take them out of the food chain or with a bit or will forbid the animal research but in my view some forms of genetic engineering not all violate their dignity for example manipulations to render plants sterile for mere commercial interests or patents on plants violate the dignity furthermore plants should have some degree of independence regarding their adaptation and propagation as well as the survival of their own species after having discussed dignity for such a long time I came to love this expression it's more than respect or value if I would ask you for more respect for this tomato plant nobody would bother uptake particularly dignity as a provocation and that is good and maybe maybe in a few years we will all laugh together as predicted by the Ig Nobel Prize and they then will be a laugh about our arrogance as humans ladies and gentlemen thank you very much you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 85,370

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Switzerland, Life, Behavior, Compassion, Farming, Gardening, Mindfulness, Nature, Plants, Research, Social Change, Sustainability, Trees

Id: i8YnvMpcrVI

Length: 14min 37sec (877 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 11 2016

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Description

Plants are not passive, senseless objects. They use the language of fragrances to communicate above and below ground and engage in lively relationships with their environment and peers. Not only do they support relatives, harass strangers, make alliances, they also learn from experience and remember past events. Underground they form extensive root and fungal networks to exchange nutrients and information – an internet of plant communities of unimaginable size. What are the consequences of re-imaging the rights of plants? Do they deserve more respect? A recent amendment to the Swiss Constitution asserts that plants have “dignity”. Is dignity for plants an absurd concept? Florianne Koechlin thinks not.

Florianne Koechlin holds a degree in Chemistry (Middlebury College USA) and a degree in Biology and Chemistry education (University of Basel). She is the founder and current Managing Director of the Blueridge Institute, in Muenchenstein, Switzerland. She is a co-founder of the Swiss Working Group on Genetic Engineering (SAG), the Basel Appeals against Genetic Engineering and GENET; serves on the Board of Directors for the Foundation for Future Farming and Swissaid; and is an Advisory Board member for the Swisscanto-Greeninvest.