image: These are images of Posidonia oceanica. There are pictures (a) illustrating the individual shoots (ramets) and (b) hosting the largest (15 km) clones detected in this study. view more
Credit: Photograph by M. San Felix.
Mediterranean seagrass meadows contain genetically identical clones up to 15 kilometers apart, suggesting that these organisms must be thousands to tens of thousands of years old, as reported in the Feb. 1 issue of the online journal PLoS ONE.
The seagrass, Posidonia oceanica, reproduces asexually, which can result in single organisms that are very large and very old. To investigate the P. oceanica meadow, the researchers, led by Sophie Arnaud-Haond of the French Research Institute for Exploration of the Sea (IFREMER) and The University of the Algarve in Portugal and Carlos M. Duarte from the CSIC-IMEDEA in Spain, sampled populations across 3500 kilometers of the Mediterranean. Not all the seagrass they found was genetically identical, but those that were suggest both extreme size and age.
Seagrasses are the basis of essential coastal ecosystems but are waning worldwide, and P. oceanica meadows are declining at an estimated rate of about 5% per year. The results reported in PLoS ONE suggest that clones of that species have adapted to a broad range of environmental conditions, but the unprecedented rate of global climate change, together with the steep decline in seagrasses already observed for the past 20 years, are raising serious concerns about the continued survival of this long-lived species.
Citation: Arnaud-Haond S, Duarte CM, Diaz-Almela E, Marba` N, Sintes T, et al. (2012) Implications of Extreme Life Span in Clonal Organisms: Millenary Clones in Meadows of the Threatened Seagrass Posidonia oceanica. PLoS ONE 7(2): e30454. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0030454
Financial Disclosure: This research was supported by the Foundation BBVA (Spain), the European Commission (M&MS EU project; FEDER/POCI 2010, FCT, project NETWORK&DIVSTAB). These funders are national (Portuguese FCT) or European (FP5) agencies funding research projects. T. Sintes acknowledges the Project FIS2007-60327, funded by the Spanish MEC. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing Interest Statement: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Disclaimer: This press release refers to upcoming articles in PLoS ONE. The releases have been provided by the article authors and/or journal staff. Any opinions expressed in these are the personal views of the contributors, and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of PLoS. PLoS expressly disclaims any and all warranties and liability in connection with the information found in the release and article and your use of such information.
About PLoS ONE
PLoS ONE is the first journal of primary research from all areas of science to employ a combination of peer review and post-publication rating and commenting, to maximize the impact of every report it publishes. PLoS ONE is published by the Public Library of Science (PLoS), the open-access publisher whose goal is to make the world's scientific and medical literature a public resource.
All works published in PLoS ONE are Open Access. Everything is immediately available—to read, download, redistribute, include in databases and otherwise use—without cost to anyone, anywhere, subject only to the condition that the original authors and source are properly attributed. For more information about PLoS ONE relevant to journalists, bloggers and press officers, including details of our press release process and our embargo policy, see the everyONE blog at http://everyone.plos.org/media.
Journal
PLoS ONE