In a natural context, such as a forest, plants must cope with the presence of various elements that may be suitable for their purposes (e.g., potential supports and conspecifics). In this context, plants should be able to monitor the environment and discriminate quantities between sets of physical elements during various activities. To date, there is little evidence regarding plants’ ability to discriminate among quantities of elements that are present in the environment. 

For instance, it has been reported that plants are able to direct their roots’ growth toward a patch with more nutrients. Further studies are needed before we can claim that plants present quantity-related abilities and, if so, how sophisticated they are compared to those observed in animal species. We search for evidence that even plants are sensitive to the element quantity, which may underlie the enhancement of adaptive decision-making in nature.