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Name:“Immortal " seagrass meadow
Location : Shark Bay , Western Australia
The seagrass meadow at Shark Bay will keep expanding for as long as it is undisturbed, researchers said.
Coordinates:-25.8829486505056 , 113.90591540490992
Why it ’s incredible : The gargantuan meadow formed from a undivided seedling .
The crystal - exculpated amnionic fluid of Shark Bay are home to the world ’s largest plant : a seagrass meadow spanning 77 square Swedish mile ( 200 square kilometers ) and stretching 112 miles ( 180 kilometers ) from terminal to end . The shoot that make up the monolithic hayfield all develop from one root , which researchers estimate is at least 4,500 long time honest-to-goodness .
Researchersanalyzed the genetic makeup of the seagrass at Shark Bayfor the first time in 2022 . They discovered that almost all the Poseidon ’s medal weed ( Posidonia australis ) — which develop in a connection of meadows inside the alcove — was genetically indistinguishable , indicating that the skunk belonged to one plant life . Unlike other type of seagrass , which reproduce sexually , this meadow come along to be continually cloning itself through an belowground stem predict a rhizome .
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On the sandlike seafloor , the ego - cloning seagrass meadow variety clump of pasture that search like freestanding organisms , but underground , the shoots are join to form " the largest clone in any environment on Earth , " theresearchers wrotein the study .
This means the Shark Bay seagrass overshadow the previous book - holder : The secondly - large clone on record is a 9 - mile - long ( 15 km ) meadow ofPosidonia oceanicaseagrass in the western Mediterranean Sea .
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The meadow at Shark Bay is thrive through a cognitive operation known as " horizontal rhizome extension , " in which the plant grow stems that extend horizontally beneath the seafloor . These stems then farm vertical stems that grow shoots and leaves , which break through the Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin to form seagrass . free-base on the size and years of the hayfield , researcher estimate it is expand by around 6 to 14 inch ( 15 to 36 centimeter ) per year — which is pretty quick compare with other self - cloning seagrass meadows , according to the study .
The hayfield has remained comparatively undisturbed for millennium , which has enable it to reach prodigious proportion . The clon could carry on its creeping enlargement for as long as it is leave unaffected , making it much immortal , Elizabeth Sinclair , an evolutionary biologist at the University of Western Australia , previously tell Live Science .
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