Sagao Bamboo Forest
Antti T Nissinen
If you want an example of something that no even half competent, intelligent designer would come up with, but exactly the sort of thing a mindless, undirected, utilitarian process such as evolution by natural selection, can produce, you need look no further than bamboo.
Bamboo is monocarpic, i.e., like many annual and biennial plants it flowers once, then dies. However, unlike most monocarpic plants that take just one of two, maybe a few years, to flower, bamboo of the variety hedonis takes 120 years.
To make matters worse, because they all germinated at the same time after the last flowering, all the bamboo plants in the local area flower and die at the same time, devastating an ecosystem that had been forming for 120 years, as food crop, and even providing raw materials for local crafts. And then it's gone, reverting to grassland for the three or more years it takes for the new generation to reestablish itself.
As though that weren't bad enough, researchers at Hiroshima University have now shown that there is a very low success rate in germinating seeds as most of them are sterile and fail to germinate.
The last time this variety of bamboo flowered was in 1908, so, in a few years, there is a very real risk that var. hedonis could become extinct.
The problem is explained in a Hiroshima University News release:
Flowering for naught: 120 years with nothing to showFurther details of this ecological catastrophe facing Japan is given in the team's paper in PLOS ONE:
A long-lived monocarpic species of bamboo, Phyllostachys nigra var. henonis, only flowers once every 120 years before it dies. The upcoming flowering event for this species does not bode well for its continued long-term survival, as most flowers are not producing viable seeds.Flowering for some plants is a yearly occurrence, for others, it is a once-in-a-lifetime event. A widespread species of bamboo in Japan, Phyllostachys nigra var. henonis, takes this one-time flowering event and pushes it to the extreme: they flower once every 120 years before dying to make way for the next generation. Researchers have realized there might be another issue at hand with this monocarpic species, which is the lack of germination of the seeds from a majority of the flowering specimens. Implications of a once dense field of bamboo, something that serves both as a food source and a source of material for crafts, turning to grassland for several years until the regeneration of bamboo begins to start somehow, can impact the ecology of the area in addition to the country’s economy.
Researchers published their results in PLOS ONE on June 12.
Upon the observation of some early flowering specimens, researchers decided to take advantage of this event to take a deeper look at the regeneration ecology since there is no recorded data since the last flowering of this species took place around 1908. It was found that more than 80% of the sampled culms flowered but all the flowering culms did not produce seeds, indicating this variation of P. nigra does not reliably undergo sexual regeneration via the germination of seeds.
Around .17 million hectares of Japan are occupied by three species of bamboo, one of them being P. nigra var. henonis. Given that this variety of bamboo isn’t producing viable seeds, it’s likely once this flowering event occurs, there will be wide open areas of grasslands, changing the ecology of the area in addition to reducing the availability of bamboo as a resource. The environmental impacts of a rapidly shifting ecological area extend past the insects and animals that rely on the food or shelter of the bamboo stand but also can impact the area for years to come considering the potential for soil erosion. Bamboo can help keep soil in place thanks to its strong and widespread rhizomes, so a sudden loss of a large area of this plant can lead to changing topography of the area. There are measures that can be taken to protect the ecological habitat during the time it takes for the bamboo stands to regenerate, such as fertilizer applications or replanting the same bamboo species from non-flowering stands. However, management of the rapidly spreading rhizomatous bamboo can become an issue that would then need to be addressed regularly and somewhat aggressively. More information to be gained includes addressing why this variety of bamboo doesn’t produce many viable seeds, and from there, considerations made on the longevity of this species as a whole have to be made, too. Furthermore, due to its aggressive spread and intense management required to keep it from overtaking forests and other agricultural areas, the best time to make widespread changes might be after the flowering event when the bamboo is at its weakest.The bamboo did not produce any viable seeds that can germinate. Bamboo shoot production was stopped after flowering. There was no sign of regeneration of this bamboo after flowering for the initial three years.
So, a bamboo stand will turn into a grassland after bamboo flowering for at least several years. We may need to manage this drastic change after bamboo flowering.
Toshihiro Yamada, first author
Graduate School of Integrated Sciences for Life
Hiroshima University, Higashi-Hiroshima, Japan.
AbstractQuite why a widespread variety if bamboo in Japan, which has been part of Japanese culture for many v=centuries, should have become incapable of reproducing sexually but still dies off after trying is something for further investigation.
Phyllostachys nigra var. henonis, a monocarpic bamboo with a 120-year flowering interval, is next predicted to flower in Japan in the 2020s. Because a huge area of the country is presently covered by stands of this species, post-flowering dieback of these stands and ensuing drastic changes in land cover may cause serious social and/or environmental problems. No study on the regeneration of this bamboo species was conducted during the last flowering event in the 1900s, and the regeneration process of this species is thus still unknown. In 2020, we encountered a localized flowering of P. nigra var. henonis in Japan and used this discovery as a rare opportunity to study the initial regeneration process of the species. Over 3 years, more than 80% of culms in the study site bloomed, but no seed was produced. In addition, no established seedlings were located. These facts strongly suggest that P. nigra var. henonis lacks the ability to produce seeds and cannot undergo sexual regeneration. Some bamboo culms were produced after flowering but died within 1 year of emergence. Small, weak culms (dwarf ramets) also appeared after flowering, but most died within 1 year as well. Three years after flowering, all culms had died, with no sign of regeneration detected. According to our 3 years of observation, this bamboo appears to be hard to regenerate—an idea completely contradicted by the fact that this species has long persisted in Japan. We thus considered other possible regeneration modes for P. nigra var. henonis.
Yamada T, Imada K, Aoyagi H, Nakabayashi M (2023)
Does monocarpic Phyllostachys nigra var. henonis regenerate after flowering in Japan? Insights from 3 years of observation after flowering.
PLoS ONE 18(6): e0287114. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287114
Copyright: © 2023 The authors.
Published by PLoS. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)
It is possible that the limited local flowering on which the team based their data is atypical of the variety as a whole - a case of sampling error - but the consequences, if their findings prove to be general, are serious, both culturally and ecologically.
It’s difficult to imagine how this could be the intended outcome of a benevolent, intelligent designer and not a malevolent of incompetent designer or a mindless natural process with no plan.
Curiously, as with parasites, creationists would rather we thought of their putative designer as a sadistic malevolence rather than accept that evolution by natural selection is a better explanation for the observable facts. It's almost as though there is a hidden agenda in which worshipping their putative creator is way down the list of priorities.
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