How do plants know when it’s Autumn? How do leaves know when to turn red and fall off?
In: Biology
Chemistry.
Similar to how your human cells respond to caffeine when you drink too much and get hyper and can’t sleep. Trees have an internal chemistry that react to the changes in weather. The cells detect it and start shutting down to go dormant.
This is not too dissimilar from your brain detecting increased levels of Melatonin (hormone for sleep) in your body and making you yawn and shut down for sleep. It’s all chemistry.
It’s quite fascinating to think about. Living things are just biological robots carrying out the instructions of their DNA. Are any choices really our own?, but that’s a question for another day.
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