Postdoctoral researcher Noori Choi is fascinated by how communication works. He began his research by studying animals that use visual signals to communicate and continued to do so at the Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour (CASCB) at the University of Konstanz and the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior. However, with the award of a prestigious 3-year Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) Fellowship, Noori shifted his focus – from animals to plants. His current research explores how plant behaviour can shed light on the fundamental mechanisms of environmental perception, and how our understanding of communication might expand, for example, by looking at apple trees.

What inspired you to pursue this particular research topic?

"For my doctoral thesis, I studied the communication of wolf spiders. Now, at the Max Planck Institute, I'm working on social communication in cichlid fish. But I’ve always felt that something important was missing: the receiver side of communication."

Noori Choi

In animal communication, it's somewhat easier to study signalling, but much harder to understand how signals are perceived. So I began thinking about how I could learn the techniques needed to understand perceptual processes more deeply. That’s when I came across the Human Frontier Science Program. Interestingly, the HFSP requires applicants to propose a project outside their previous field – something out of their comfort zone. I thought that plant perception was far enough outside mine, yet still connected to my broader interests.

What were your next steps and considerations in pursue of this new focus?

I reached out to Professor Ximena Nelson at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. She suggested studying the multi-sensory perception of apple trees. For this kind of perceptual research, molecular approaches are essential – just as they are in animal studies using rats or other model systems to examine neurosensory inputs and neural circuits.

To do this in plants, they need to be genetically modified. Professor Nelson collaborates with Dr Lloyd Stringer at Plant & Food Research who is a coadvisor of this project at the largest agricultural institute in New Zealand, which has already developed genetically modified apple trees. This offered a very practical starting point. The infrastructure and plant lines already exist – I just needed to bring the research idea. So I thought, this is a wonderful opportunity, and I decided to write the proposal focusing on plants.

How did this new proposal connect to your previous research on animals?

Even if animals produce complex signals, if the receivers can’t differentiate or interpret them, it changes everything we think we know about communication. Studying perceptual mechanisms in animals is extremely difficult. We still don’t fully understand how brains process these signals. That’s why I thought plants – organisms without centralized nervous systems – might provide an alternative way to study perception and integration of environmental signals.

So even though this project focuses on plants, it ties directly into my broader interest: understanding how communication evolves, both in animals and plants. I believe this work with apple trees through the HFSP fellowship could offer new insights into the perception side of communication evolution.

How do you expect this study to change the way we understand and study plants?

"On a broader level, this research could help us explore how living organisms perceive their environments without a centralized nervous system like a brain or spinal cord. Plants don’t have those, but we know they still receive and respond to multi-sensory environmental inputs."

Noori Choi

By carrying out this project, we hope to gain insights into how organisms process environmental stimuli without traditional neural networks. That could really shift how we think about perception and cognition across life forms.

Are there any scientific controversies or disagreements regarding plant perception?

This field is still quite new and not extensively studied, but yes, there are some controversies.

One big question is whether plants truly perceive multi-sensory inputs. Another is whether they can integrate those inputs to produce sophisticated, specific responses to environmental stressors. There’s disagreement about the extent to which plants can process and act upon environmental information in an integrated way. Addressing those questions is a central aim of this project.

Beyond what your project will contribute to science, why is this important research?

I think this project could really shift public perceptions about plants.
Many people see plants as passive – just standing there, taking in whatever the environment throws at them. But in reality, it's not possible to survive for centuries without mechanisms to perceive and respond to environmental change.

Because they can’t move, plants may need even more refined systems to detect and react to environmental stressors. This project could help people see plants not as passive life forms, but as active organisms coexisting with us and constantly adapting.

Your HFSP fellowship will take you to your host institution in New Zealand, the University of Canterbury. What will your future scientific environment be like there?

First of all, I’ll be working in an apple orchard – not exactly like working on Lake Tanganyika! So that will be quite a change. I’ve never worked with plant systems before, so I’m really looking forward to the new experience. I’ll be collaborating with researchers from Plant & Food Research, who focus on improving agricultural efficiency and promoting environmentally sustainable farming in New Zealand.

This will be a completely new experience for me in terms of how science can be applied to real-world needs. My past research has been more "blue sky" – focused on fundamental questions in evolutionary biology, with no immediate application.

This new environment will show me how academic research can contribute more directly to practical challenges and human life. That’s going to be a major shift in how I work and think as a scientist.

Noori Choi is a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and the Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour (CASCB) at the University of Konstanz. He studied Biology at Yonsei University in South Korea and earned his PhD in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (USA). In 2022, he was awarded a CASCB Postdoctoral Grant, designed to support outstanding early career researchers for 1–2 years as they build academic independence and prepare for their next career steps. Most recently, Noori received a prestigious three-year fellowship from the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP), which funds bold and interdisciplinary life science research with transformative potential. His new project is titled "Phyto-Umwelt: Decoding the Multisensory World of Plants".