Specimen of spider plant (Chlorophytum comosum)
The biological idea of plant life, for centuries relegated to a secondary plane when compared to animal dynamism, has undergone a profound change with a new study that demonstrates, with rigorous scientific evidence, the existence of maternal care in plants.
The discovery of “maternal care” in plants, in the course of a study led by Vineet Soni, researcher at Mohanlal Sukhadia University, blurs one of the most deeply rooted boundaries between kingdoms — the one that reserved the idea of creation and parental protection exclusively for animals.
The , pre-published on Wednesday in bioRxivfocused on the physiological and biochemical analysis of the indoor plant Chlorophytum comosuma chlorophytum known in Portugal as spider plant.
This species produces small daughter plantswhich remain linked to the mother plant by thin, creeping stems, the so-called runnersexplains .
The team, consisting of Vineet Soni, post-doctoral researcher Upma Bhatt and by the doctoral student Yashwant Sompurasubjected the plant to a methodical examination throughout four critical stages of offspring development: from the initial juvenile stage to the final stage of complete growth. fotoautotrofiain which the daughter plant becomes autonomous.
The analyzes carried out revealed that the stall works in a similar way to a placental organ: acts as a biological umbilical cord, a vital channel specialized in the active and regulated transfer of water and essential nutrients from maternal tissues to the developing plant.
This connection is not a simple structural appendage: constitutes a life support system whose integrity determines the survival of the offspring.
Experimental confirmation of the mechanism came through a controlled stall cutting. When separation was induced in the early juvenile phase, the survival rate of daughter plants was 0%.
This percentage increased progressively and measurably as the daughters advanced in development, reaching 100% survival only when the cut was made in the phase of total independence.
This maturity-dependent survival curve closely reproduces patterns observed in placental mammalsin which premature separation from maternal supply invariably leads to fatal outcomes.
The discovery, however, goes beyond a mechanical model of nutrition by physical connection. The behavior of the mother plant reveals a dimension of evaluation and contingent response that reinforces the analogy with parental care in animals.
The study documents that, when the daughter plant reaches physiological independence, the mother plant begins a programmed process of degradation of the stall, completing the separation.
Still, researchers identified a decisive exception to this “protocol”. When daughter plants face environmental stress conditions, such as episodes of drought, or when their root systems do not develop normally, the mother plant suspend indefinitely the degradation process.
In these adverse circumstances, keeps the stall functional and continues to provide resources to offspring, even when that support comes at a tangible energetic cost to their own growth and development.
This modulation of behavior, depending on the state of the offspring, suggests a level of inter-organismic communication and biological “decision” which, until now, was not anticipated in plants.
The demonstration of a active parental careconditioned by the environment, in Chlorophytum comosum It’s not just a biological curiosity: represents an epistemological turning point that requires expanding the vocabulary of behavioral ecology and evolutionary biology to fully include the life forms that anchor terrestrial ecosystems, say the study authors.
