Monica Gagliano

Gagliano trained as a marine ecologist.{{cite news |last1=Shechet |first1=Ellie |title=Do Plants Have Something to Say? |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/26/style/can-plants-talk.html |access-date=1 July 2023 |agency=New York Times |date=26 August 2019}} As a postdoctoral fellow at James Cook University in 2008, she was researching Ambon damselfish (Pomacentrus amboinensis) at the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. As part of her research, she was required to kill and dissect the fish at the end of the study. The fish were used to her presence and would swim in and out of her hand daily, but on the last morning, when she visited them to say goodbye, they refused to come out of their crevices and greet her, as if they knew what she intended. This produced an ethical and professional crisis for Gagliano. She completed the study but vowed not to kill in the name of science again. She left animal science and entered plant science. Her sense that the fish understood what she was doing set her on a course of studying sentience in other life forms.{{cite news |last1=Shechet |first1=Ellie |title=Do Plants Have Something to Say? |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/26/style/can-plants-talk.html |access-date=1 July 2023 |work=New York Times |date=26 August 2019}}{{cite web |last1=Howgego |first1=Joshua |title=Smarty plants: They can learn, adapt and remember without brains |url=https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24032050-400-smarty-plants-they-can-learn-adapt-and-remember-without-brains/ |website=New Scientist |access-date=1 July 2023}}{{cite book |last1=Gagliano |first1=Monica |title=Thus Spoke the Plant: A Remarkable Journey of Groundbreaking Scientific Discoveries and Personal Encounters with Plants |date=2018 |publisher=North Atlantic Books |location=Berkeley |isbn=9781623172435 |page=ix–xiii}}{{cite web |title=Ep 13 with Monica Gagliano |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPt1ftW_2hU&list=PLdGWfi1EYpVR57IgptmwMBh90K1Q0gCRB&index=5&ab_channel=RichardBrown |website=Consciousness Live! channel | date=8 October 2018 |publisher=Richard Brown |access-date=6 July 2023}}

Gagliano is a researcher in the field of plant cognition.{{Cite web |last=Morris |first=Andréa |title=A Mind Without A Brain: The Science Of Plant Intelligence Takes Root |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/andreamorris/2018/05/09/a-mind-without-a-brain-the-science-of-plant-intelligence-takes-root/ |access-date=2024-02-21 |website=Forbes |language=en}} Her most well-known study, from 2014, investigated learning and memory in Mimosa pudica.{{cite journal |last1=Gagliano |first1=Monica |last2=Renton |first2=Michael |last3=Depczynski |first3=Martial |last4=Mancuso |first4=Stefano |title=Experience teaches plants to learn faster and forget slower in environments where it matters |journal=Oecologia |date=2014 |volume=175 |issue=1 |pages=63–72 |doi=10.1007/s00442-013-2873-7 |pmid=24390479 |bibcode=2014Oecol.175...63G |s2cid=253975419 |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00442-013-2873-7 |access-date=1 July 2023|url-access=subscription }} Mimosa plants typically fold their leaves at the slightest disturbance. Gagliano's study showed that Mimosa plants no longer folded their leaves after being dropped in the same way repeatedly. They habituated to the disturbance, and habituation is an elementary form of learning.{{cite web |last1=Gagliano |first1=Monica |last2=Marder |first2=Michael |title=What a plant learns. The curious case of Mimosa pudica. |url=https://botany.one/2019/08/what-a-plant-learns-the-curious-case-of-mimosa-pudica/ |website=B1 Botany One |date=13 August 2019 |publisher=Annals of Botany Company |access-date=7 October 2023}}{{cite web |last1=Krulwich |first1=Robert |title=Can a Plant Remember? This One Seems to—Here's the Evidence |url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/can-a-plant-remember-this-one-seems-to-heres-the-evidence |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210218015135/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/can-a-plant-remember-this-one-seems-to-heres-the-evidence |url-status=dead |archive-date=February 18, 2021 |website=National Geographic Science |date=15 December 2015 |publisher=National Geographic |access-date=7 October 2023}} In 2016 Gagliano showed that the common garden pea (Pisum sativum) demonstrated learning by association. That is, in the same way that Pavlov's Dog learned to associate the sound of a bell ringing with food, the pea plant learned to associate an unrelated stimulus, in this case moving air from a fan, with plant "food," namely, light.{{cite journal |last1=Gagliano |first1=Monica |last2=Vyazovskiy |first2=Vladyslav V. |last3=Borbély |first3=Alexander A. |last4=Grimonprez |first4=Mavra |last5=Depczynski |first5=Martial |title=Learning by Association in Plants |journal=Scientific Reports |date=2 December 2016 |volume=6 |issue=38427 |page=38427 |doi=10.1038/srep38427 |pmid=27910933 |pmc=5133544 |bibcode=2016NatSR...638427G }} As a way of further investigating plant cognition, in 2022 she and a research team posited that plants are able to pay attention and suggested using a phenomenological-empirical approach to test this hypothesis.{{cite journal |last1=Parise |first1=André Geremia |last2=de Toledo |first2=Gabriel Ricardo Aguilera |last3=Oliveira |first3=Thiago Francisco de Carvalho |last4=Souza |first4=Gustavo Maia |last5=Gagliano |first5=Monica |last6=Marder |first6=Michael |title=Do plants pay attention? A possible phenomenological-empirical approach |journal=Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology |date=2022 |volume=173 |pages=11–23 |doi=10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2022.05.008 |pmid=35636584 |s2cid=249165801 |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0079610722000530 |access-date=1 July 2023|hdl=11577/3451659 |hdl-access=free }}

Gagliano has extended the field of bioacoustics to plants. In 2012 she showed corn plants emitting sounds.{{cite journal |last1=Gagliano |first1=Monica |last2=Mancuso |first2=Stefano |last3=Robert |first3=Daniel |title=Towards Understanding Plant Bioacoustics |journal=Trends in Plant Science |date=March 2012 |volume=17 |issue=6 |pages=323–25 |doi=10.1016/j.tplants.2012.03.002 |pmid=22445066 |bibcode=2012TPS....17..323G |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/221973850 |access-date=1 July 2023}} In 2017 she showed that the roots of the pea plant (Pisum sativum) sensed a water source through sound cues.{{cite journal |last1=Gagliano |first1=Monica |last2=Grimonprez |first2=Mavra |last3=Depczynski |first3=Martial |last4=Renton |first4=Michael |title=Tuned In: Plant Roots Use Sound to Locate Water |journal=Oecologia |date=May 2017 |volume=184 |issue=1 |pages=151–60 |doi=10.1007/s00442-017-3862-z |pmid=28382479 |bibcode=2017Oecol.184..151G |s2cid=5231736 |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00442-017-3862-z |access-date=1 July 2023|url-access=subscription }}

Gagliano advocates for comparing learning in plants to learning in animals, challenging the conventional scientific boundary between beings with brains and beings without them. In a 2013 presentation Gagliano argued that the same habituation that the Mimosa plants showed, when it is observed in animals, is called “learning,” and therefore researchers need to “use the same language to describe the same behavior.”{{cite journal |last1=Pollan |first1=Michael |title=The Intelligent Plant |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/23/the-intelligent-plant |journal=New Yorker |date=15 December 2013 |access-date=1 July 2023}} She told New Scientist in 2018, “Whether it is an animal, a plant or bacteria, if it ticks the boxes that we agree define learning, then that is what it is doing." In a 2015 journal article she addressed common theoretical problems that lead researchers not to research intelligence in plants and suggested solutions to these barriers of thought.{{cite journal |last1=Gagliano |first1=Monica |title=In a green frame of mind: perspectives on the behavioural ecology and cognitive nature of plants |journal=AoB Plants |date=2015 |volume=7 |doi=10.1093/aobpla/plu075 |pmid=25416727 |pmc=4287690 }}

Gagliano is an advocate for stronger ethical standards in scientific protocols for working with both plants and animals. In 2020 she and several animal behavior scientists, concerned that current practices of conventional science do not go far enough in guaranteeing the welfare of animals, plants, or ecosystems, suggested criteria to deepen researchers’ ethical commitment to nonhuman welfare. Their suggestions include using language that respects sentience in animals; emphasizing aspects of experience that are important to the animal being studied (such as the importance of smell to dogs); and incorporating unconventional sources of knowledge, such as Indigenous knowing and personal relationships with the beings under study.{{cite journal |last1=Franks |first1=Becca |last2=Webb |first2=Christine |last3=Gagliano |first3=Monica |last4=Smuts |first4=Barbara |title=Conventional science will not do justice to nonhuman interests: A fresh approach is required |journal=Animal Sentience |date=2020 |volume=27 |issue=17 |doi=10.51291/2377-7478.1552 |s2cid=214257748 |url=https://www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org/animsent/vol4/iss27/17/ |access-date=1 July 2023|doi-access=free }}

In addition to her Western scientific training and research, Gagliano has also trained with Peruvian plant shamans, following established shamanic protocols to learn how to communicate directly with plants. She credits plants with suggesting designs for lab experiments and collaborating with her to solve research problems.{{cite book |last1=Gagliano |first1=Monica |title=Thus Spoke the Plant: A Remarkable Journey of Groundbreaking Scientific Discoveries and Personal Encounters with Plants |date=2018 |publisher=North Atlantic Books |location=Berkeley |isbn=9781623172435}}

Michael Pollan’s 2013 article in the New Yorker, “The Intelligent Plant,” introduced Gagliano’s work to a wide audience and reignited popular interest in, and discussion about, plant cognition.{{cite magazine |last1=Pollan |first1=Michael |title=The Intelligent Plant |magazine=The New Yorker |date=15 December 2013 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/23/the-intelligent-plant |access-date=1 July 2023}}{{cite news |last1=Shecher |first1=Ellie |title=Do Plants Have Something to Say? |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/26/style/can-plants-talk.html |access-date=1 July 2023 |work=New York Times |date=26 August 2019}}

Artist and writer James Bridle discussed Gagliano’s work in his book Ways of Being (2022).{{cite book |last1=Bridle |first1=James |title=Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence |date=2022 |publisher=Farrar, Straus & Giroux |location=New York |isbn=9780374601119 |pages=71–75}} In his 2023 interview with Emergence magazine he called her work “hugely influential” to him.{{cite web |last1=Vaughan-Lee |first1=Emmanuel |title=An Ecological Technology: An Interview with James Bridle |url=https://emergencemagazine.org/interview/an-ecological-technology/ |website=Emergence Magazine |date=6 December 2022 |publisher=Kalliopeia Foundation |access-date=1 July 2023}}

Novelist Richard Powers, author of The Overstory, and Monica Gagliano participated in a conversation on “Plant Intelligence” at the Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Engagement at Dartmouth College in 2020.

Indigenous botanist and professor Robin Wall Kimmerer and Monica Gagliano were interviewed on the Bioneers podcast.{{cite web |title=Nature's Intelligence: Interviewing the Vegetable Mind with Robin Kimmerer and Monica Gagliano |url=https://bioneers.org/natures-intelligence-interviewing-the-vegetable-mind-robin-kimmerer-and-monica-gagliano/ |website=Bioneers |date=24 October 2017 |access-date=1 July 2023}}

Gagliano was one of six people studying various aspects of consciousness who were profiled in the 2021 documentary Aware.

• Thus Spoke the Plant: A Remarkable Journey of Groundbreaking Scientific Discoveries and Personal Encounters with Plants (North Atlantic Books, 2018) {{ISBN|9781623172435}}

• P Vieira, M Gagliano, and J Ryan, eds. The Green Thread: Dialogues with the Vegetal World (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015) {{ISBN|9781498510592}}
• M Gagliano, J Ryan, and P Viera, eds. The Language of Plants: Science, Philosophy, Literature (University of Minnesota Press, 2017) {{ISBN|1517901855}}
• J Ryan, P Vieira, and M Gagliano, eds. The Mind of Plants: Narratives of Vegetal Intelligence (Synergetic Press, 2021) {{ISBN|0907791875}}

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• {{official|https://www.monicagagliano.com/}}
• [https://www.scu.edu.au/about/contacts/staff-directory/staff/49560.php Monica Gagliano’s staff page] at Southern Cross University

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Category:1976 births

Category:21st-century Italian botanists

Category:Botanists active in Australia

Category:Italian ecologists

Category:Italian women botanists

Category:Italian women scientists

Category:Living people

Category:Plant intelligence writers