It is the Posidonia oceanica , a marine plant endemic to the Mediterranean Sea. Although it looks like an algae, Posidonia has vascular tissues and flowers, and forms extensive underwater meadows with great ecological importance. Now, a CSIC team has found a clone of this species in Formentera that could be more than 100,000 years old.
Researchers have studied the clonal growth of Posidonia , a process by which its tissues are continually dividing, causing plants to grow slowly but surely. In this way, the rhizomes or stems of Posidonia slowly occupy the space until they extend for several kilometers. Carlos Duarte, responsible for this work published in PLoS ONE , explains: "The rhizomes are woody, very resistant to degradation and maintain connections with the same clone for thousands of years. The process is slow because the stems are one centimeter in diameter. and the leaves can reach up to a meter in length. In addition, the Posidonia genome is very conservative and resistant to mutations. "
The researchers compared the clones of more than a thousand samples located in various parts of the Mediterranean, finding that many of them formed grasslands separated by up to ten kilometers and with an age of more than 100,000 years.
