The world's biggest clone in Australia is a network of 77 square miles. The network of meadow is a single plant that has been cloned for over 4,000 years.
The clone was found in Shark Bay, a protected body of shallow water in Western Australia. They found out that almost all of the region's flowers are the same. The other seagrasses in the area reproduce sexually, but P. australis is actually cloning itself through an underground network of branching roots.
The largest known example of a clone in any environment on Earth is the P. australis clone, which stretches for around 112 miles (180 km) from end to end. The previous record-holder is a clone of the Posidonia oceanica, which spans around 9 miles.
Senior researcher Elizabeth Sinclair told Live Science that it is a single plant that has been able to grow. Sinclair said that the clone could continue to expand indefinitely if it remained undisturbed.
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The researchers found that the P. australis clone was expanding through a process known as horizontal rhizome extension, in which a plant creates a genetically identical spinoff via an underground stem. When viewed from the surface, the clumps look different, but on a genetic level they are the same plant.
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The P. australis meadow can still be considered to be one plant even if it doesn't form a single meadow. The researchers wrote that it is possible that the P. australis meadow was once fully connected and may have been fragmented by marine animals.
Researchers think the clone is growing at a rate of 6 to 14 inches (15 to 35 centimeters) per year. This may not seem like much, but it is a fairly quick rate when compared with other clonal seagrass.
Theoretically, the clone could continue to grow indefinitely, Sinclair said, as long as it isn't disturbed and the environment doesn't change too quickly.
The P. australis success story is thought to be due to an unusual genetic superpower among plants that allows them to make an additional copy of their genome, which doubles the amount of DNA they can utilize to adapt to extreme changes in environmental conditions.
Most organisms on Earth have a single pair of chromosomes. This is not the case for all organisms. Monoploids are organisms that have single unpaired chromosomes and are also known as males of certain species of bees. Some organisms have more than one pair of chromosomes.
Polyploidy is the process of doubling the number of chromosomes in a plant. The researchers think this is what happened to P. australis.
There are two ways that a diploid plant can become a polyploid. It can happen when two species reproduce. Polyploid offspring get an entire copy of each parent's DNA, instead of combining parental DNA like a standard hybrid does. This is called allopolyploidy. Polyploids can arise when two individuals from different populations of the same species reproduce, and the offspring get both complete sets of DNA. This is called autopolyploidy. In both cases, the process is completely random and offspring are unable to reproduce with other individuals from their parents species.
In the case of P. australis, the researchers determined that the self-cloning seagrass likely emerged via autopolyploidy from a diploid ancestor that has gone extinct.
Many polyploid plants are sterile, meaning they cannot reproduce sexually. The ability of plants to change is a key part of the theory of evolution. Plants that are facing extinction due to extreme environmental changes may be able to survive if they become a polyploid.
Sinclair said that combining two different genomes has doubled the genetic diversity in the plant, likely increasing its ability to tolerate a wider range of environmental conditions.
Shark Bay was above sea level until around 8,500 years ago. The Last Glacial Period ended around 12,000 years ago and caused sea levels to rise. New species were found in the newly created marine habitat.
The shallow water of Shark Bay would have made it very unstable at the time. The average depth of Shark Bay is around 30 feet (9 meters) across the entire 8,880 square mile (23,000 square km) area, but it would have been even deeper around 4,500 years ago when P. australis emerged. Shallow oceans are more vulnerable to extreme shifts in temperature because there is less water to distribute and circulate heat and minerals. Their environment is more prone to damage from tropical storms than deep-sea environments.
The researchers suggested that if P. australis became polyploid, it would have an advantage over its diploid predecessors.
Extreme conditions continue to plague Shark Bay. The water is very salty and the annual temperatures can range from 63 to 86 degrees. The shallowness of the bay means it is at risk from heat waves caused by climate change and could be vulnerable to damage from storms. The environment is more stable than it was when P. australis first appeared.
The resilience of P. australis is likely due to the fact that it thrives in the area for thousands of years, and other local seagrass species that continue to reproduce sexually may be less resilient. She said that P. australis has been free to clone itself at a steady pace and dominate the local environment.
It was originally published on Live Science.
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