Plant agency: from senome and electrome to plant semiosphere

Summary

Plants are increasingly understood as complex agents rather than passive organisms. This theoretical synthesis integrates Cellular Cognitive Biology, Biosemiotics, and Phenomenology to describe how plant agency arises from autopoietic organization and enactive sense-making. At the cellular level, the senome—a multimodal analog interface—and the electrome allow real-time environmental evaluation. Bioelectric and mechanical perturbations cross a semiotic threshold, becoming meaningful signs through semantic couplings. Plant agency scales from individual cells to the whole organism as a decentralized modular system, projecting sentience into surroundings via extended cognition, driving niche construction and a plant semiosphere. The N-space episenome enables holobiont emergence, linking individual senomes into a distributed hypersenome for shared decision-making and collective survival. This shared agency demands a reconciliation between ontology and ethics, grounding a new environmental ethics and legal recognition of nature.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Historically constrained by mechanistic and cerebrocentric paradigms, plant life is increasingly recognized as a complex expression of biological agency. Building upon this paradigm shift, this article presents a theoretical synthesis integrating Cellular Cognitive Biology, Biosemiotics, and Phenomenology. We explore how the transition from a reactive to an agentic view of plants is grounded in autopoietic organization and enactive sense-making. At the elementary level, this agency is sustained by the cellular senome—a multimodal, analog interface allowing the cell to evaluate its environment in real-time—and the electrome. By synthesizing these perspectives, we describe how bioelectric and mechanical perturbations cross a semiotic threshold, transforming into meaningful signs through semantic couplings. This framework elucidates how plant agency scales from individual cells to the whole organism, operating as a decentralized modular system. Eventually, this sentience is projected into the surroundings via extended cognition, driving active niche construction and the creation of a plant semiosphere. Ultimately, the biophysical infrastructure of the N-space episenome enables the emergence of the holobiont. At this scale, communication links individual senomes into a distributed hypersenome, giving rise to a relational agency that facilitates shared decision-making and collective survival. Beyond the scientific and evolutionary implications, we argue that acknowledging this shared agency demands a reconciliation between ontology and ethics. Recognizing that plants affirm their existence as an intrinsic “good” establishes a foundation for a new environmental ethics, emphasizing our moral responsibility toward the ecosystems that sustain life and advocating for the legal recognition of nature.