I don't know very much about plants, but this is too cool not to mention; [A]n absolutely massive new genus of palm tree has been described from Madagascar that puts nearly all its energy into fruiting, dying after an explosion of flowers and fruit. The new genus is described in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society (unfortunately I do not have access), and LiveScience has a short piece on the discovery.
You can check out some more details about this fascinating new palm at Further Thoughts.
[Thanks to a kind reader I now have the paper and will have something up about it soon. The editorial help of a fellow blogger with this post is also duly appreciated.]
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Lots of individual trees can be seen from Google Earth, in areas where its resolution is good. Maybe there's something special about what can be seen of this kind of tree.
Never say "I don't know too much about plants" or anything else, as a blogger. What to you is a statement of modesty (you probably know way more about plant evolution, plant-animal interaction, whatever than 90% of your readers (who are not full time students of science or actual scientists). But "I'm not an expert on" and similar phrases is an invitation to obnoxious trolls who will see it as a sign of weakness.
Anyway, that is a cool plant. I've never heard of a palm that has that reproductive strategy, though I don' know much about plants.
Rosie; I don't use the program that often, so you're probably right. It was a pretty vague statement and I've removed it since I didn't have firsthand knowledge of precisely what was meant. Thanks for the tip!
Greg; I guess I don't know too much about blogging either.... oh crap...
Anyway, there are a few other plants that reproduce and then die (and some animals too), but I have to wonder how such a system evolved. I'll have to read the paper for more detail, but if I plant invests so much energy into becoming huge then "explodes" and dies, that is a somewhat strange life cycle. I wonder what combination of seasonality, pollinators, etc. led to such a trend.
My take on it. I find both the LiveScience and the BBC articles focus on the fact that you can "can see it in satellite images" is kinda silly. But palms that flower like this are amazing - I have seen a couple Talipot palms in flower - it's quite a sight to behold. That and the idea of growing for 70-100 years before flowering once...how does a strategy like that even evolve?
Regarding my comment above - when I loaded this page only Rosie's comment was there, so I hadn't seen Brian's or Greg's comments. Semelparity is actually not that uncommon in plants - bamboos are probably the best known examples. Agaves do this as well, which is what earned them the name "century plants". And, as I mentioned, Talipot palms do it too.
Lots of plants put all of their energy into an explosion of reproduction before they die. They're called weeds. What makes this palm different is the time frame. Such explosions of reproduction have been shown to overwhelm seed predators ensuring a larger number survive, just as periodic cicadas overwhelm predators by satiating them. So this strategy produces more offspring in the long run than producing a small number each year over a long period of time. But long-lived perennials play the reproductive game over decades during which they must leave exactly one viable offspring to maintain the population.
Brian,
The plant pretty much has to die because it spends so much energy swimming up stream.
Of course, lots of plants grow and die without future seasons of reproduction (all the annuals). These are just big and slow annuals....
(Then again I don't know much about plants.)
'Obnoxious trolls' are far more likely to notice and latch onto failed attempts at pretending to expertise, Mr. Laden. Such as "These are just big and slow annuals...."
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I wonder if these are actually introduced invasive plants. Perhaps they're not a local variety at all, but were brought to the area decades ago. Genetic analysis might be able to tell us more.
That's as maybe, but once you have the full story up I'm sure Berry Go Round will be happy to have it for the upcoming plant carnival.
Well, I'm just a big and slow annual, and I don't know much about ____________ (fill in the blank), but I was surprised to hear of so many wetland palms. I think of date palms and coconut palms, near water but not in water, it just didn't occur to me they would handle root submersion, although Madagascar would be the place for it to happen.
But then I guess palms and cycads were common back in the warm & wet periods in the days of yore. I guess they grow too slow compared to branching trees.
Imagine waiting 100 years before having sex, and then keeling over dead. Poor thing. Let's hear it for artificial insemination!