Stefano Mancuso

In 2017, he published The Revolutionary Genius of Plants: A New Understanding of Plant Intelligence and Behavior. The English translation of the book was written by Vanessa Di Stefano.

In 2014, at the University of Florence, Mancuso created a startup specializing in plant biomimetics and an autonomous floating greenhouse, which was offered for mass production to the Chilean government in 2016.

In 2013, he published the book Plant Intelligence (italian: L’intelligenza delle piante), co-authored with Alessandra Viola.

Mancuso concluded that in the course of evolution, plants had to work out solutions to the problems inherent in organisms attached to a substrate. Although plants have neither nerves nor a brain, they have a social life and, therefore, analogs of the sensory organs, though very different from those in animals. He considers the key to understanding this can be found in some cells (gametes and bacteria), corals, sponges, and in the behavior of organisms such as placozoa. In 2012, Mancuso and his colleagues found that plants have receptors that make their roots sensitive to sound and the direction of its distribution. Other biologists four years prior claimed that trees in conditions of acute water shortage can emit sounds which can be more than just passive signs of cavitation.

In 2012, in the Plantoid project, he took part in the creation of a "bio-inspired" robot that imitated certain natural properties of the roots, and could, for example, explore an area that is difficult to access or contaminated as a result of a nuclear accident or the use of bacteriological weapons. The Plantoid project is still developing for the European Commission by consortium of the scientists including Mancuso.

In 2010, Mancuso gave a lecture in Oxford on the movement of roots in the soil: how they look for water, nutrients and capture new spaces. Mancuso was also an invited speaker at the TED Global conference in the same year.

Now we also know that plants are able to synthesize molecules that play a role similar to animal neurons, in particular synaptotagmins and monosodium glutamate. Plants can carry out the biosynthesis of molecules that are supposed to be homologous to molecules that perform important functions in animals (for example, molecules that activate immunophilins that perform immune and hormonal functions in animals, in particular, signaling of steroid and neurological hormones). Cytology confirms the existence of plant cells behaving as synapses, in which auxins appear to play the role of neurotransmitters (given the specifics of plants). In 2005, Mancuso, together with several biochemists, developed a “non-invasive” microelectrode based on carbon nanotube technology for measuring and fixing the flow of information that can circulate in plants.

According to his view, academicians were initially highly skeptical of even a simple concept like “plant behavior” or "plant learning", and until 2005 there was an unspoken ban on a discussion of “plant behavior” in academic circles, but subsequent discoveries have led to the creation of university departments within this research area, as well as the writing of numerous articles and scientific papers. Around the same time, discussion about “bio-inspired plantoid robots” began. These machines could, for example, use a light mechanical system similar to plant roots to restore washed-out or contaminated soils. Some scientists still refuse to talk about the intelligence of plants and even about their "consciousness", as this leads to new philosophical questions, for example: if plants perceive wounds or aggression, and then respond to them, carrying out various biochemical processes, is it possible to draw analogies with pain in animals here? In 2008, a petition signed by thirty-six European and North American biologists urged to avoid using the term “plant neuroscience” in scientific usage. On the other hand, the hypothesis of a common intelligence in plants seems to immediately attract the attention of the general public.

Mancuso studied the abilities of plants and their root system (in particular, the tops of the roots, which are very sensitive to various types of stimuli, such as pressure, temperature, certain sounds, humidity, and damage). According to an article published in 2004 by a group of botanists (which included Mancuso), the areas of the root apices interact with each other, forming a structure whose functions they proposed to be similar to the functions of an animal's brain.

Mancuso developed an interest in the research of plants during his university studies. Since 2001, he has been a professor at the University of Florence, and in 2005 he founded the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology, designed to study physiology, behavior, molecular biology, intelligence, and other fields of plant science.

According to Mancuso, since the beginning of the 1990s, some scientists began to recognize that plants have not only the ability to communicate with each other, but also their own form of intelligence.

Stefano Mancuso (born 9 May 1965) is an Italian botanist, professor of the Agriculture, Food, Environment and Forestry department at his alma mater, the University of Florence. He is the director of the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology, steering committee member of the Society of Plant Signaling and Behavior, editor-in-chief of the Plant Signaling & Behavior journal and a member of the Accademia dei Georgofili.