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Memory and Learning as Key Competences of Living Organisms

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Book cover Memory and Learning in Plants

Part of the book series: Signaling and Communication in Plants ((SIGCOMM))

Abstract

Organisms that share the capability of storing information about experiences in the past have an actively generated background resource on which they can compare and evaluate more recent experiences in order to quickly or even better react than in previous situations. This is an essential competence for all reaction and adaptation purposes of living organisms. Such memory/learning skills can be found from akaryotes up to unicellular eukaryotes, fungi, animals and plants, although until recently, it had been mentioned only as a capability of higher animals. With the rise of epigenetics, the context-dependent marking of experiences at both the phenotype and the genotype level is an essential perspective to understand memory and learning in all organisms. Both memory and learning depend on a variety of successful communication processes within the whole organism.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Telos-Philosophische Praxis, Salzburg, Buermoos, Austria

    Guenther Witzany

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  1. Guenther Witzany
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Correspondence to Guenther Witzany .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Plant Cell Biology, IZMB, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany

    Frantisek Baluska

  2. School of Animal Biology, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Autralia, Australia

    Monica Gagliano

  3. Telos- Philosophische Praxis, Buermoos, Salzburg, Austria

    Guenther Witzany

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Witzany, G. (2018). Memory and Learning as Key Competences of Living Organisms. In: Baluska, F., Gagliano, M., Witzany, G. (eds) Memory and Learning in Plants. Signaling and Communication in Plants. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75596-0_1

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