A team of scientists say that sprawling seagrass in the shallows of the Mediterranean may be the oldest living organisms on Earth, far older than humanity itself.
Working off of DNA samples, a team of scientists say clumps of seagrass between Spain and Cyprus could be as old as hundred of thousands of years old.
Carlos Duarte of the University of Western Australia in Perth and his colleagues sequenced the DNA of the seagrass Posidonia oceanica at 40 sites across 2,100 miles of seafloor, discovering that the organism may be the oldest on Earth.
“They are continually producing new branches,” said Mr. Duarte in an interview with The Daily Telegraph. “They spread very slowly and cover a very large area giving them more area to mine resources. They can then store nutrients within their very large branches during bad conditions for growth.”
The analysis, published in the journal PLos ONE, found the seagrass was between 12,000 and 200,000 years old and was most likely to be at least 100,000 years old. This is far older than the current known oldest species, a Tasmanian plant that is believed to be 43,000 years old.
The team of researcher said the seagrass has been able to reach such old age because it can reproduce asexually and generate clones of itself.
The study comes as scientists have sought to increase studies concerning how various organisms will face the changes from global warming. The team of scientists studying the seagrass say that the organism is facing threats from higher than normal sea temperatures and pollutants introduced by humans.
The Mediterranean is warming three times faster than the world average and P. oceanica meadows decline annually by around 5 percent, say scientists.
