00:00 If we look at the data that we have for species, for other plant species, other animals and plants indeed,
00:07 they typically have small or very small genomes and species with bigger genomes are really the exception rather than the rule.
00:14 But this plant, this fern has just sort of pushed that limit right to the edge, we think.
00:20 We're probably at the really extremes of what biology can do.
00:24 So does it mean that these plants, the tiny fern, can survive climate change and biodiversity challenges?
00:32 Well, I think the answer is no, because species with bigger genomes, every time they want to divide themselves in order to replicate and grow,
00:44 it takes them much longer, so they're much more slowly growing.
00:48 And that means that in an environment which is changing rapidly, such as under climate change or with land use change giving rise to,
00:56 for example, biodiversity loss, as you mentioned, they really are less adaptable.
01:03 They're more constrained in the sort of ecological opportunities that they can take.
01:08 And so, yes, I do believe that this species, although it hasn't been assessed for its extinction risk,
01:15 is going to be certainly pushing on the edge of being unlikely to be able to survive huge changes in the environment.
01:23 What else can we learn by studying the tiny fern, by studying its DNA?
01:29 We really need to understand what's going on, sorry, what's going on across the whole spectrum of genome size diversity,
01:37 which in plants is really immense. Just to say that plants vary nearly 2,400 fold in the amount of DNA they have in each cell,
01:47 which is much greater than any other group of comparable group of organisms.
01:53 So there are some species which have, for example, 50 times less DNA in each of their cells than we do in our own in the human genome.
02:02 And then this plant has got over 50 times as much DNA in each of its cells.
02:07 So it really questions, you know, how does biology work with that huge morass of DNA?
02:13 How does it function? How does it package it all into the cell?
02:17 And what does a discovery mean to us human beings and the world?
02:22 It means that we really need to understand how genomes across the full diversity of plants operate,
02:29 because plants are really important for us.
02:33 You know, we perhaps underestimate their value. They provide the oxygen we breathe, the food that we eat.
02:39 Of course, they provide many of the clothes. And yet it's been estimated that say 45 percent of flowering plants are at risk of extinction.
02:48 So really, if we want to preserve and maintain the planet as it is, not only for humanity, but for all life on Earth, we've got to protect them.
02:58 So understanding the different factors that affect the survival of a plant will be important in designing what the appropriate conservation strategies are that we adopt in order to conserve plants.
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