Department of Biology, Grinnell College, 1121 Park Street, Grinnell, IA 50112, USA.
Integr Comp Biol. 2023 Dec 29;63(6):1391-1398. doi: 10.1093/icb/icad117.
The means by which plants and other organisms exist in and respond to dynamic environments to support their thriving as individuals and in communities provide lessons for humans on sustainable and resilient thriving. First examined in my book, Lessons from Plants (Harvard University Press, 2021), I explore herein the following question: "How can plants teach us to be better humans?" I consider how insights gathered from plant physiology, phenotypic plasticity, and other plant growth phenomena can help us improve our lives and our society, with a focus on highlighting academic and scientific environments. Genetically identical plants can have very different appearances, metabolisms, and behaviors if the external environments in which they are growing differ in light or nutrient availability, among other environmental differences. Plants are even capable of transformative behaviors that enable them to maximize their chances of survival in dynamic and sometimes unfriendly environments, while also transforming the environment in which they exist in the process. Highlighting examples from research on, for instance, plants' responses to light and nutrient cues, I focus on insights for humans derived from lessons from plants. These lessons focus on how plants achieve their own purposes by following common principles of the universe on thriving and resilience as individuals and in communities.
植物和其他生物存在于动态环境中并对其做出响应的方式，支持它们作为个体和在群落中茁壮成长，这为人类提供了关于可持续和有弹性的繁荣的经验教训。我在我的书《植物的启示》（哈佛大学出版社，2021 年）中首先探讨了这个问题：“植物如何能教会我们成为更好的人类？”我探讨了以下问题：“从植物生理学、表型可塑性和其他植物生长现象中收集的见解如何帮助我们改善我们的生活和我们的社会，重点是突出学术和科学环境。”如果在光照或营养供应等其他环境差异下，植物生长的外部环境不同，那么即使是遗传上相同的植物也可能具有非常不同的外观、新陈代谢和行为。植物甚至能够进行变革性的行为，使它们能够最大限度地提高在动态和有时不友好的环境中生存的机会，同时在这个过程中也改变了它们所存在的环境。我从植物对光和营养线索的反应等研究中选取了一些例子，重点介绍了从植物的经验中为人类带来的一些启示。这些启示集中在植物如何通过遵循个人和群体繁荣和弹性的宇宙共同原则来实现自身目标。
