Deep inside the epigenetic memories of stressed plants

Recent evidence sheds light on the peculiar type of plant intelligence. Plants have developed complex molecular networks that allow them to remember, choose, and make decisions depending on the stress stimulus, although they lack a nervous system. Being sessile, plants can exploit these networks to optimize their resources cost-effectively and maximize their fitness in response to multiple environmental stresses. Even more interesting is the capability to transmit this experience to the next generation(s) through epigenetic modifications that add to the classical genetic inheritance. In this opinion article, we present concepts and perspectives regarding the capabilities of plants to sense, perceive, remember, re-elaborate, respond, and to some extent transmit to their progeny information to adapt more efficiently to climate change. Molecular mechanisms underlying the ‘intelligence’ of plants are far from being fully understood while they are under a profound debate in the scientific community.The contribution of the different types of epigenetic machinery (DNA methylation, chromatin remodeling, and RNA-mediated regulation) to data perception, storage, elaboration, and transmission needs to be elucidated.Epigenetic modifications are inherited through mitosis and in part through meiosis, thereby contributing to the long-term adaptation of plant species to climate change.Light shed on mechanisms of plant stress memories allows to define, piece by piece, an epigenetic alphabet of plant responses to environmental changes.The epigenetic ‘orchestra’ is played by hundreds of molecular players (writers, readers, erasers) that operate in a fine-tuned, coordinated manner to contribute to the symphony of plant intelligence even in the absence of a nervous system.