Famous for its giant spiders and many strange creatures that look like they came out of a science fiction movie, Australia recently hosted a discovery that renewed its reputation. Australian scientists discovered the world’s largest plant in the Shark Bay area in Western Australia.
This seagrass, which is only a few meters under the sea, shocked scientists as a result of the investigations. The aim of scientists studying a seagrass community was to find out how much genetic diversity this community actually had. But what they found led them astray.
The entire seagrass community is actually a single plant
Scientists believe that the seagrass community in the photo above has only one genetics, that is, a single plant. discovered. The community consisted of a single plant named ‘Posidonia australis’. The plant, which is estimated to have taken root for the first time about 4,500 years ago, also had an unimaginable length: 178.6 kilometers.
The discovered plant also aroused curiosity about how a plant survived for so long. Scientists have announced that they will now begin to investigate how this plant has evolved and survived despite all the changing conditions for thousands of years. The data to be obtained will also be of great importance for the future of seagrass, which is one of the creatures that will be most affected by climate change.