GabyA romantic story unfolded around the revival of the palm tree of the extinct species Encephalartos woodii. This species was widespread on Earth long before the existence of dinosaurs. The last specimen of Encephalartos in the wild was discovered in 1895 in the Ngoye Forest in South Africa. Today, it is rare. trees They can be found in some botanical gardens. But all of them are males. This means that hopes for the species’ return to the wild flora of our planet are very slim.
Encephalartos woodii is a gymnosperm tree about 6 meters tall, belonging to the cycad class. The species is named after the botanist John Medley Wood, who discovered it.
Scientists from the University of Southampton (UK) wanted to increase the population of this plant. However, reproduction of the species is only possible with the involvement of a female specimen, which no one in our time has seen.
AI, drones, and maybe even gender transition.
Botanists turned to modern technologies, hoping for their assistance. They scoured the Ngoi forest with drones, which had never been fully explored before, in an attempt to find a female partner for a solitary tree.
These drones equipped with a multispectral camera capable of capturing light in five different wavelength ranges, each of which helps to distinguish individual plants and their characteristics. In total, the researchers aimed to survey 10,000 acres of forest. However, they have only covered 195 acres so far, obtaining 15,780 images, the publication reported. ILFScience .
To analyze the photographs, researchers involved artificial intelligence “We use a recognition algorithm to identify plants by their shape. For this, we took images of plants and placed them in different ecological conditions to train the model to recognize them,” explained Dr. Laura Sinti, who leads the project.
If this method does not help identify the female specimen, researchers will look for other solutions. Currently, they are even exploring the possibility of changing the sex of the male plant.
Dr. Sinti mentioned that scientists are aware of examples of sex change in other species of cycads due to the climate crisis. Therefore, the team hopes to achieve a sex change in E. Woodii as well.
After 300 million years of existence on the planet, cycads are now considered to be the most threatened with extinction. Therefore, the return of Encephalartos woodii from the brink of extinction would be a true scientific achievement.
“I was very inspired by the story of E. woodii; it reflects the classic tale of unrequited love. I hope that somewhere there is his woman. It would be wonderful to revive this plant through natural propagation,” said Ms. Cinti.
