I think I'm a clone now...

Well, the ball is finally rolling on my research project. I will be looking at plant species that are known to produce sexually and attempting to show the fact that they do reproduce through cloning as well. The first species I will be looking at is Palo Verde.

When attempting to decide what topic I would cover for my project, i came to a decision that I would like to learn more of the nuts and bolts of genetic analysis. After extensive conversations with Matt and Josh, I decided to pursue an avenue of research that Matt suggested. He felt pretty confident through his  personal observations that the Palo Verde may actually do some reproduction from through cloning. The Palo Verde is a tree that has adapted well to the desert environment. It's dispersal appears to be pretty broad but it is often concentrated in washes. It specifically has adapted to growing in caliche, hardened deposits of calcium carbonate that acts like a cement holding gravel, sand, clay, and silts together in a solid mass. The Palo Verde is able to utilize voids in the caliche to develop it's root system. While very hard, this caliche layer is subject to forces of erosion. This erosion is where the fun begins with the Palo Verde. The suspicion is that when the Palo's root become exposed due to erosion that they will actually begin to grow another tree.

 This is a prime example of what I have been looking for. Notice the main tree left of center in the photo with a large root mass trailing to the right. On the right side is another tree that has matured, and between the two, new "shoots" can be seen. I think that this specimen will make a positive control.

In this picture you can see the large root heading from the main mass of trees on the right to the smaller one on the left. Is this a clone?

The same specimen from a different angle, showing that there are three separate tree systems here.

I have begun collecting samples from multiple Palo Verdes at Squaw Peak. I am collecting samples from trees I suspect to be cloning and trees that show no indications of it, all of which are in relatively close proximity to each other (map to come). Next week I will begin extracting DNA and soon hope to be running gels for analysis.

The question that looms in my head is where is the division line between one organism and another? For example in the first photo, there are three obvious tree growths connected to the same root system. Are they the same organism? Will I be able to find a situation where there are genetically identical trees that are no longer connected by the same root system? This may be difficult to do, and is definitely difficult to research. I have not been able to find literature on this subject as yet.

The digging continues...