Tuesday, February 7, 2012

What Does 100,000-Year-Old Seagrass Look LIke?


This archaic seagrass' or underwater meadows are called Posidonja oceanica and live in the Mediterranean. What is their secret to a long-life? According to Professor Carlos Duarte, the director of the Oceans Institute, Withthrop, " Clonal organisms have an extraordinary capacity to transmit only highly competent genomes through generation, with potentially no end" although now climate change is threatening their being. Duarte adds " Indeed, the ancient meadows [...] are declining at a rate several hundred-fold faster than the rate over which they spread when forming, a situation that this slow growing, long lived species is capable of recovering from." This will have consequences to all of earth as these meadows are essential to coastal ecosystems. Replanting these meadows has proved unsuccessful thus so far,so they face a struggle we will share with them in the decades to come. 
For those who want to know more about seagrass here is a variety of helpful links:

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