

Ancient flower lives only on two Spanish cliffs, and uses ants to survive - suprgeek
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2012/09/12/ancient-flower-lives-only-on-two-spanish-cliffs-and-uses-ants-to-survive/

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sounds
The article is a great read!

I am reminded of
[http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2012/02/24/147367644/six-l...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2012/02/24/147367644/six-
legged-giant-finds-secret-hideaway-hides-for-80-years) \- which if you haven't
seen yet, is amazing also.

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CKKim
Thanks very much for posting this. From the second paragraph of the Discover
article I was thinking "this reminds me so much of something I read years
ago...what the devil was it?". Turns out it was not years ago, but just last
February (I thought time was supposed to speed up as you get older?). It's a
fairly safe bet that NPR article was linked on here and that's how I came
across it, too.

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xerula
These types of complex mutualistic interaction between multiple species are
precisely what biologists predict are most prone to being disrupted by
environmental degradation and climate change, leading to high extinction risk
for the dependent species. This fascinating flower (one of the few "living
fossils" in the yam family) has been successful in persisting over vast
evolutionary time scales, yet is now critically endangered. In the face of the
mass extinction event we humans seem determined to inflict on our biosphere,
conservationists often advocate concentrating our efforts on saving ancient
species like Borderea chouardii, because they present relatively isolated,
long branches on the tree of life. This means that saving them equates to
saving the maximum evolutionary history - and thus the maximum phylogenetic
diversity - with the minimum effort. (In practice, many other factors have to
be taken into account.)

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epaga
Now that is a well-written article. The bookend plays on words are just smart
enough to not be cheesey but rather make the article especially memorable.

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nicholassmith
I quite liked that as well, smart writing and having fun with the topic.

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pcrh
For what it's worth, using antweb.org I checked the geographic distribution of
the ant species mentioned. _Pheidole pallidula_ is widely distributed in the
Mediterranean, and both _Lasius grandis_ and _Lasius cinereus_ are found in
the Azores, Canary Islands and Madeira.

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codeflo
Well-written article and interesting read. What I didn't understand is in what
sense that plant is considered "ancient"? Is it the lifespan of individual
plants (300 years)? The article claims that "The plant is a relict, an ancient
hanger-on from a time just after the death of the dinosaurs" -- I'd like to
know what is meant by that sentence that isn't equally true for homo sapiens.

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pav3l
Good point. I'm assuming they mean ancient in genetic sense, i.e. kind of
species that were typical back when dinosaurs were around and because of their
somewhat isolated history, they evolved in a slightly different way from most
plants in that geographical area.

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gurpreet42
Nice article with such a detailed information.

Research is never easy, but exciting and fun.

