News > More Fun Than Fun: Plants Also Have Their Social Lives and Family Disputes

More Fun Than Fun: Plants Also Have Their Social Lives and Family Disputes

18/08/2021 03:06 PM | Click to read full article

Many animals live in social groups of varying degrees of complexity. The most complex of these is called ‘eusocial’, meaning ‘truly social’. Members of eusocial colonies belong to multiple generations, exhibit cooperative care of the offspring, work for the welfare of the colony.

Now, Kevin Burns, a professor of biology at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and his colleagues claim that they have discovered a eusocial plant. The object of study is the epiphytic fern Platycerium bifurcatum.

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