Can a tree that outlived the dinosaurs survive the modern world?

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Hidden in a top secret location within a national park near Sydney, is one of the rarest trees on earth — the Wollemi Pine.

It will help the scientists to better understand why the Wollemi's wild population has declined to critical levels.

"The question we're asking is, does the Wollemi Pine have the genetic infrastructure to provide resistance and a defence against those diseases," Dr Maurizio Rossetto said. "We'll have a better understanding of how to manage it on site, but also how to translocate it into a new location, if that's what we decide to do in the future," he said.

"Maybe being in that location for such a long time, it didn't need as much protection," Larry Croft from Deakin University said.When asked if there is a chance the Wollemi is not equipped to survive in the modern world, Dr Rossetto concedes it is a possibility."It doesn't have the genetic make-up to resist some of the introduced, or even the native natural diseases."

If that's the case, saving the Wollemi Pine's wild population will take more than keeping its location top-secret.

 

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'Hidden in a top secret location'! Really, Johnathan Hair, then how come this reporter knows exactly where it is and has propagated cuttings? Sensationalist reporting of a story many years old.

If the pine was particularly vulnerable then the many that exist in people's gardens would be exhibiting symptoms. Yet they continue to sell them and there are no reports of such problems.

Can it? Should it? Humans cause extinctions, but is preserving a species against natural selection just as bad? Are humans just a part of natural selection? We are animals after all. Just a thought....

You mean humans? No.

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