Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution => Topic started by: realmswalker on 23/05/2005 06:08:39
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I understand that they will grow towards sunlight and such but i have a question:
If you planted 2 identical (dna wise) plants in an area where the conditions were exactly the same, would they end up looking the same?
If not, why?
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I think I'm right in saying that plants grown hydroponically in a totally controlled environment end up looking pretty much the same. Phone the Eden Project, they'd know.
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Plant DNA and human DNA is not exactly the same, but I know that with human twins, both the 'normal' exact twin, and the further distinction, whether they shared the same amniotic fluid even, making them even more identical, you still have differences, like finger- and other wrinkled skinprints, and retina.
Remember that environmental 'damage' which up to a point defines our unique identity - any deviation from 100% perfect translation from DNA to organism *is* damage - starts soon after the first cell-divisions...
The living are the dead on holiday. -- Maurice de Maeterlinck (1862-1949)
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I'm not 100% clear on mammalian or indeed plant meiosis, but I know that in some yeasts (I think it was yeast... it was a cell biology practical lab 2 years ago...) formed from the merging of two cells with different types of mitochonria (so you'd expect offspring with mixed mitochondria) split after surprisingly few generations to give two groups with the only one of the two different types (this is in a yeast which doesn't reproduce by budding by the way).
So yeah, anyway... certainly very subtle changes in environment affect developement (whether it be of plant or of human or other mammal), but it is also true that differnces on a microscopic level affect the developement of an organism.
So even if you treat your seeds exactly the same, you probably won't get entirely identical plants. Pretty darn close in some cases, but not actually the same.