A remarkable discovery was made by a team of scientists who found a cloned tree stump of eelgrass (Zostera marina) in the Baltic Sea that is estimated to be up to 1,400 years old. This international research group from Kiel, London, Oldenburg, and Davis, California, used a novel genetic clock to determine the age of the cloned tree in the sea, marking the first time a cloned seagrass plant of this age has been identified in the Baltic Sea.
The researchers applied this new clock to a global dataset of eelgrass Zostera marina, found in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Mediterranean. In Northern Europe, they discovered several cloned trees that were several hundred years old. The oldest cloned tree was determined to be 1,402 years old and was found in the Baltic Sea. This eelgrass plant managed to reach such an advanced age in a harsh and ever-changing environment.
Dr. Thorsten Reusch, a professor of marine ecology at the Center Ocean researcher GEOMAR Helmholtz in Kiel highlighted how vegetative reproduction or cloning is a common alternative method of reproduction among various species. Cloned plants produce genetically similar saplings through various means such as tillering or budding often resulting in large areas of cloned plants though the young plants are not genetically identical. Previous research from the GEOMAR team indicated that somatic mutations accumulate in cloned young plants similar to cancer. This led Dr. Reusch’s team at GEOMAR Helmholtz University Kiel and Professor Iliana Baums’s team at Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity at Oldenburg University to develop a molecular clock that can accurately determine the age of any cloned tree.
The genetic clock they developed can serve as a useful tool for accurately determining the age of cloned plants in future research studies on different species such as corals algae and land plants. The discovery highlights how even under harsh environmental conditions life persists through vegetative reproduction or cloning which could have important implications for conservation efforts and understanding how organisms evolve over time
