Unveiling Plant Behavior: Movement, Communication, and Environmental Interactions

Evidence have shown that plants have evolved flexible strategies to cope with their sessile lifestyle and enhance their chances of survival and reproduction. They employ diverse movement strategies in both above- and below-ground organs to explore, monitor, and optimize interactions with their environment. Moreover, plants actively perceive and respond to their surroundings through complex networks of intra- and inter-plant communication involving both electrical and chemical signaling. These strategies underscore the complexity and integration of plant perception, signaling, and response systems. Despite growing research, a deeper and more integrated approach—drawing on molecular biology, philosophy, plant physiology, ecology, evolutionary biology, behavioral sciences, and bioengineering—is needed to fully understand the diverse mechanisms and behaviors that plants exhibit in natural contexts.

This Research Topic aims to advance our understanding of how plants actively perceive and interact with their environment, with a focus on plant movement and communication. Core objectives include investigating how plants sense, interact and adapt to environmental elements.

By integrating insights from different perspectives such as plant physiology, ecology, behavioral science, and bioengineering, this collection seeks to highlight plants as active agents with complex adaptive capabilities. We invite contributions from diverse disciplines that explore the dynamics of plant behavior, movement, and communication. Submissions should address how plants perceive their surroundings, modulate their behavior accordingly, and engage in interactions with other organisms. We particularly welcome studies that reveal novel signaling pathways, adaptive strategies, and innovative technologies that challenge the traditional view of plants as passive organisms.

Key questions to be addressed include: How do plants perceive environmental stimuli and adapt their behavior accordingly? What are the underlying physiological mechanisms that enable these behaviors? How can interdisciplinary frameworks improve our understanding of plant behavior? In what ways do plants influence and reshape their ecosystems through behavioral and communicative responses?

We welcome Original Research, Review Articles, Methods, and Perspectives addressing (but not limited to) the following themes:
- Adaptive behaviors in plants that enhance survival across diverse environmental conditions, along with the underlying physiological mechanisms.
- Signaling pathways including electrical signals, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), root exudates involved in plant behavior and plant-organism interactions.
- Technological innovations such as plant-inspired sensors, robotics, and environmental monitoring systems for studying plant behavior.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Plant behavior & movement (tropisms, nastic movements), Electrical and chemical signaling, Environmental interactions, Plant perception and sensing, Adaptive strategies and plasticity, Plant signaling, Ground dynamics, Bioengineering and innovative technologies, Signaling pathways

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.