Largest and Very Old Plant Discovered Off the Coast of Australia
Ometecuhtli writes:
"[...] But researchers have today revealed there's a plant about 4,500 years old and measuring 180 kilometres across living right under our noses in Western Australia.
Genetic testing has revealed that what was once thought to be part of a giant seagrass meadow in the shallow waters of Shark Bay, near Carnarvon, was actually a single massive clone of Posidonia australis seagrass
[...] "We were a bit suspicious because the plants around there don't act like normal seagrass," Dr Breed said. "They don't flower as much, don't seed as much, so these signs of reproductive activity were a little bit unremarkable."
But when they took samples from 10 meadows throughout the Shark Bay area, they never expected nine of them to return a genetic match.
Instead, they were planning to use their research to inform which plants to use for restoration of the meadows, to help with their resilience against threats like bleaching...
[...] Being a clone probably helps to explain why this single plant has been so successful.
[...] Polyploidy in this case has occurred because at some stage, a Posidonia plant has hybridised with another related species.
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