Much like bees pollinate flowers, a small woodlouse-like crustacean seems to fertilise red seaweed with its legs – and it could mean pollination evolved in the seas
Valero’s team placed 20 of the animals into an aquarium containing one male and one female member of the seaweed that were 15 centimetres apart.
The findings hint that animal-mediated pollination could have evolved in the sea rather than on land. “Until recently, fertilisation with the help of animals was believed to have emerged among plants when they moved ashore 450 million years ago. Red algae arose over 800 million years ago and their fertilisation via animal intermediaries may long predate the origin of pollination on land,” says Valero.
“However, we cannot rule out that different animal-mediated fertilisation mechanisms evolved independently and repeatedly in terrestrial and marine environments.”
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