Gustavo Maia Souza

Gustavo Maia Souza is Full Professor at the Department of Botany, Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel), Brazil. He is currently Researcher Fellow at CNPq (National Council of Science and Technology), working in the areas of Ecophysiology, plant cognition and electrophysiology.

Positions:

– Coordinator of LACEV (Plant Cognition and Electrophysiology Laboratory)

– Head of the Interdisciplinary, Assessment and Postgraduate Planning Center (NIAPP) of the Dean of Postgraduate Studies and Research at UFPel.

– Coordinator of the Postgraduate Program in Plant Physiology at the Federal University of Pelotas.

– Currently act as one of the Editors-in-chief of the journal Plant, Signaling & Behavior.

Selective attention is an important cognitive phenomenon that allows organisms to flexibly engage with certain environmental cues or activities while ignoring others, permitting optimal behavior. It has been proposed that selective attention can be present in many different animal species and, more recently, in plants. Assuming Marder’s phenomenological definition of attention as “a disproportionate investment of physical or mental energy by an organism, tissue, or cell, into a particular activity or into the reception of a singled-out stimulus or set of stimuli”, we have hypothesized that attention in plants would be reflected in its electrophysiological activity, possibly being observable through electrophytographic (EPG) techniques. Former EPG time series obtained from the parasitic plant Cuscuta racemosa in a putative state of attention towards two different potential hosts (i.e. the suitable common bean and the unsuitable wheat), were revisited. Here, we investigated the potential existence of different band frequencies using a protocol adapted from neuroscientific research. Average band power (ABP) was used to analyze the energy distribution of each band frequency in the EPG signals, and time dispersion analysis of features (TDAF) was used to explore the variations in the energy of each band. Our findings indicated that most band waves were centered in the lower frequencies. We also observed that C. racemosa invested more energy in these low-frequency waves when suitable hosts were present. However, we also noted peaks of energy investment in all the band frequencies, which may be linked to extremely low oscillatory electrical signals in the entire tissue. Overall, the presence of suitable hosts induced a higher energy power, which supports the hypothesis of attention in plants. Additionally, we have supported that hypothesis through a metanalysis using former EPG data from different species.