Why are there species of plants that live more than 1,000 years?

Based on the number of age rings and genetic studies of ginkgo trees in China, some of them are confirmed to be over 1,000 years old.

A team of scientists compared ginkgo biloba (also known as ginkgo biloba, or ginkgo biloba) at very young and very old tree ages in China. Thereby, they almost found an explanation for the questions about the "terrible" lifespan of this plant.

Ginkgo is referred to as the "living fossil" of the Earth. This is the oldest tree species that exists on the planet and has almost no change in about 200 million years. A ginkgo tree can live for over hundreds, thousands of years. The tree even survived the world's largest catastrophes, from the dinosaur's extinction milestone to the catastrophic atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

Based on the number of age rings and genetic studies of ginkgo trees in China, some of them are confirmed to be over 1,000 years old.

A ginkgo tree is over 1,000 years old in Guizhou, China.(Photo: The News York Times).

"In humans, when aging begins, our immune systems will begin to weaken," said Richard Dixon, a biologist at North Texas University, USA. But in ginkgo, even though they are over 1,000 years old, the immune system is still functioning as well as 20-year plants.

In a recently published study by the National Academy of Sciences, he and his colleagues in China and the United States compared young and old ginkgo trees, aged between 15 and 1,300, by checking information. genetics of wooden libe statues, they found that the ginkgo grows infinitely and proportionally to age.

The genes in the stratum do not contain the settings related to aging or death, and the plant continues to rebuild its defenses against bad agents even after hundreds of years of existence. Old ginkgo also produces lots of seeds and leaves with the same value of resources as young trees. Although not yet tested, the researchers believe that other old trees elsewhere might have the same genetic programming pattern.

Bao bao - the symbol of Africa famous for its "tough" ability to live.However, in recent years, this tree died in a series of unknown causes.(Photo: Deccanchronicle).

Although ginkgo can actually live long, they are "old". Plants grow taller and spread with age: Tall up in the cell regeneration region (apical meristem) and spread outward with wooden libe figurines. Over time, weather or other factors can damage the meristem, thereby limiting the height of the tree.

Each year, the old leaves fall off, but the floor objects in the trunk remain intact and still functional. The researchers realized that cell division tends to slow down after 200 years but the cells still work well with the system of resistance to harmful agents. In addition, cells carry water and nutrients throughout the organ, helping plants grow healthy.

Sometimes the ginkgo is weakened, leaving only the stump empty. But with intact layer statues, they can still create leaves, flowers even live in the form of a tree.

Finally, the ginkgo tree will die. But so there was another big question: Why did the tree die?

"Basically, trees like ginkgo can live forever," said Peter Brown, a biologist. Ginkgo is a modular organism (the organism that grows in the zygote direction when developing will separate into smaller units and like it, instead of developing into a more complete and complex organism), every year they put on new layers of wood, new roots, new leaves, new genitalia. "They are not like animals like us. When we were born, all our parts were available there," he said.

Plants are creatures that will probably never die.(Photo: Somagnews).

Seedlings do not necessarily die of old age. Factors such as pests and diseases, drought killed them first. Peter Brown and other scientists predict that studies in other species like redwood or 4,885-year-old Methuselah pine will produce similar results.

Evolutionary biologist Peter Crane, who also authored "Ginkgo: The Tree of Time Forgotten" , asserts that contemplating the perennial plants can help us take a further look into The future: "This is how humanity can see how quickly the world has changed, and also reminds us not to always think only in the short term," he said.

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