Plants can move in ways that might surprise you. Some of them even show ‘sleep movements,’ folding or raising their leaves each night before opening them again the next day. Now, researchers offer convincing evidence for these nightly movements, also known as foliar nyctinasty, in fossil plants that lived more than 250 million years ago…
“It is now clear that sleeping behavior has evolved independently in various plant groups and at different times in the course of Earth’s history, so it must have some ecological benefits to the parent plant,” [Stephen] McLoughlin continued.
The findings show that it’s possible to infer not just structures but also behavioral characteristics of fossilized plants and animals. The researchers say that biological features of ancient organisms could be deciphered in the future from fossil specimens through further detailed observations of animal interactions with both fossil and modern plants.
“Evidence of fossil insect damage on leaves can provide a great deal more information about plant ‘behavior’ and ecology than just herbivory,” McLoughlin said. “The fossil record of plant-animal interactions is a rich and largely untouched bank of ecological data.”
We now know that “the evolutionary history of the ‘sleeping movements’ of leaves can be traced back to the late Paleozoic gigantopterid plants more than 250 million years ago,” Feng said. In future studies, he hopes to explore how many other plant lineages may have had similar behavior. – Cell Press (February 24, 2023)
Each of these complex plant behaviors, involving significant information systems, evolved independently but somehow it all just happens via natural selection? Nope.
The paper is open access.
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