https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/fishlake/home/?cid=STELPRDB53...
I've not yet seen an explanation of what counts as a single "organism" for these purposes and the estimated ages are all over the place.
That said, I don't think anyone who studies biology is particularly concerned with hard-line definitions, as nature tends to eschew them every chance it has.
I think Pando and corals being considered "modular bodyplans/habits" is perhaps a more useful concept than individual or clone.
The same type of vegetative reproduction is happening every time a potato or garlic clove is planted, for example. Asparagus is an even closer analogy to Pando.
> Generally speaking, yes. Each of Pando's branches is connected to the others through a shared root system.
It seems like a fuzzy gradient to me. Maybe some biologist can share what makes the distinction clear, but I can imagine a gradient ranging from fully distinct autonomous disconnected clones all the way to clearly a single organism that only grows outward into a large sphere.
Clearly Pando is somewhere in the middle of this gradient. What is Pando's position on that gradient and why is "bunch of individual clones" somewhere else? How is another tree sharing a roots not a single individual too?
But most plants can be cloned by taking a cutting and giving it continuous water + air and letting it start growing a new root system. I've never heard anybody suggest the cutting is not a new, distinct plant.
Is that true? I've seen it mentioned in non-scientific articles, but have never seen anything scientific saying so. I'm not sure why Pando would be different from any other member of its species.
All of the tree stalks are connected to the same roots, so it's all one big organism.
https://theonion.com/wildlife-officials-restock-lake-by-drop...
That's an interesting choice of word construction.
parthenogenesis -> virgin birth.
gynecogenesis -> woman birth.
[gynogenesis is an impossible form, and pathogenesis would refer to "disease birth"]
I can see how "virgin birth" is distinctive compared to ordinary birth. How is "woman birth" supposed to be different? Are people not normally born from... women?
It's referring to the to, not the from. But in either case, yes; however, males are usually involved. In this case, it's woman exclusive.
They simply use sperm to stimulate the urge to procreate/kick off the process. Thus, the need for other species to be spawning nearby.
> Pando is triploid, meaning that its cells contain three copies of each chromosome, rather than two. As a result, Pando cannot reproduce sexually and mix its DNA with that of other trees
but this seems to misunderstand the nature of plants. In an animal, this kind of ploidy variability wouldn't just make the organism sterile, it would kill it. Plants are more tolerant, and many species are known which have done what this article claims is impossible. For example, redwoods are hexaploid, which doesn't interfere with their reproduction.
Wikipedia:
> Polyploidy has come to be understood as quite common in plants—with estimates ranging from 47% to 100% of flowering plants and extant ferns having derived from ancient polyploidy.
( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoioideae )
It just isn't an obstacle. I don't know what the article author was thinking.
Probably googling a term, learning how it applies to mammals and assuming that's true for plants as well.
Six is divisible by two though.