World’s largest organism found in Australia | Hacker News Reader

World’s largest organism found in Australia

science.org

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The researchers actual report: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2022.053...

Sounds like it is in fact a single interconnected organism (like Pando) and not multiple plants that are clones.

> Our genomic and cytogenetic assessments of 10 meadows identified geographically restricted, diploid clones (2n = 20) in a single location, and a single widespread, high-heterozygosity, polyploid clone (2n = 40) in all other locations. The polyploid clone spanned at least 180 km, making it the largest known example of a clone in any environment on earth.

The healine and description makes me wonder: what can be called a single organism?

The sea grass is comprised of individual plants that are each of identical DNA, ie they are clones. Does this and their proximity and continuity make them one organism?

> The sea grass is comprised of individual plants that are each of identical DNA, ie they are clones. Does this and their proximity and continuity make them one organism?

Probably. The top paragraphs in [1] talk about precisely that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_organisms

But it sounds like it doesn't have continuity (emphasis mine): "a single polyploid clone spanning more than 180 km in fragmented, near-shore meadows".

It’s not clear to me whether this clonal colony is like Pando (shared root system) or is just clones next to each other.

In the latter case I personally wouldn’t call it one organism. Otherwise you clone a sheep and get a “double sheep” when they share a pen?!

Unless they establish that it's a single root system I wouldn't dethrone Pando just yet. From the description it's at least 9 separate seagrass beds, so I doubt it's all one system.

As a side note, I'm going to see Pando this weekend.

If they are all identical DNA, doesn't it make them exceptionally susceptible to something that finds a weak spot in that DNA? Will we hear about the world's largest organism wiped out in world's widest reaching wipeout?

It might if this "something" is persistent or widespread enough to affect all of the separate colonies of it; it sounds like there are individual patches that are spread out over many kilometers.

That "something" can a physical factor like temperature rise or acidity change. Temperature rise is known to have killed some large corals.

This sort of thing has probably happened many times in Earth's history. Homogeneity works great until it doesn't.

Spot on. The cavendish banana even recruited a globally present mammal species to spread its clones into all latitudes where it can grow, on both hemispheres. And it's not looking too well for it.

(now my brain is playing that song from the chiquita banana ad on loop that was based on Carmen Miranda in The Gang's All Here, as if that movie hadn't already saturated the worldwide demand for banana advertisement for decades)

Not looking well in what sense?

In the sense that the Gros Michel [1] was the most popular banana until 1950 when most of the cultivar were destroyed by the Panama disease. The Cavendish also has this problem [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gros_Michel_banana

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavendish_banana#Diseases

Richard Dawkins asks that exact question in his "Selfish Gene." For example humans cannot survive without it's gut bacterial flora. So is human a single organism without it or not? Where's the boundary? He also explores self replicating organisms (like mentioned seagrass) and explains benefits of evolution "introducing" sex based replication.

According to Buddhism, there is no boundary. Between a human and the "external" world. This point of view is very interesting.

James Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis is more or less the scientific equivalent of this.

think systems theory of life, planet, rock, gas, organism, etc.

I’ve begun to think we’re only distinct from other things in the context of consciousness, which is entirely subjective and manufactured by our neurons. The further you go down that rabbit hole, the more you might realize reality as we understand it is totally illusory and not even fully shared across humanity, let alone species. It’s a trip. We are as much a part of the systems we live in as anything.

In a sense we aren’t distinct from the external world because there is no internal world to differentiate from. It’s imaginary - it exists only in our neurons, an abstraction to help us navigate reality, just impulses firing along various pathways in a brain.

I always thought that biology delineates these organisms from their relationship?

They are still clearly seperate organisms, as a human does not require a particular bacterial cell, only that at least one is present in its proper place (the same as all the other cells in the human body). Thus, the "human organism" is an emergent organism from many cells, bacterial or not, acting and interacting non-deterministically. The bacterial cell by its existence allows for the existence of the larger organism.

A baby relies on adults to survive as well, but it is not biologically claimed that they are the same organism as the adults they rely on for survival.

We all require consumption of living and dead cells to survive as well. We do not claim organic-unification with these other organisms.

I wish I knew precisely where in the Blue Mountains the supposedly largest fungi resides... I live near that area, hunt for mushrooms there, and it has never been my observation that there is anything unique about the terrain or conditions that would be particularly beneficial for mass fungi growth.

Sure it's difficult for you to see, but trust me, it's obvious to a fungus.

Maybe it's good that it's not publicly known? If you find it, please don't post it on HN!

I think most people in this area have a pretty general idea where it is... While I am at best an amateur mycologist, where drdec below has me angry at his/her sarcasm is that as a human being, no, it isn't at all obvious why the world largest fungi would end up here rather than say in the WA / OR / BC cascades, or for example in the Olympics in Washington State. Those areas certainly have more of the mushrooms that we prize for human consumption, have longer seasons in which those fungi are available too (I'm hypothesizing due to moisture). Remoteness could be a factor (IE: less human contact), but those areas have plenty of very remote terrain as well. Further, I think it is a really interesting question as we contemplate the effects of climate change in these areas.

...and of course it wants to kill you :)

You expect some enormous sea monster but all you got was some kind of immortal sea weed. Trees have this thing as well. Many tree organisms are 100 000 years old. There's also some kind of distinction between tree organisms and tree individuals. Tree individuals don't get to be that old.

I didn't expect a sea monster at all. Actually, I expected a fungus.

Headline said Australia, so I expected it to be deadly.

Fungus is a pretty deadly kingdom overall, even the fungi from the rest of the continents too.

My thoughts went towards the coral reef, esp. with Australia in the headline.

I can't help but think discoverability for a fungus would be much lower.

As opposed to a sea monster?

> Many tree organisms are 100 000 years old.

Fascinating list of longest-living organisms, including aerobic microorganisms that are in quasi-suspended animation and over 100 million years old: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest-living_organis...

> There's also some kind of distinction between tree organisms and tree individuals

Now if the Ship of Theseus used wood from that tree organism...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

It's seagrass, if you want to save a click.

Ah cool they found your mom

I for one welcome our mutant hybrid mega organism sea grass overlord!

I wont click but it sounds like best prepared ‚yo mama joke’

I came here to see if there was already a highly-downvoted yo momma joke

Ehh, I totally forgot where I am, for a few moments.

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