[scrumbledober]

The article mentions that unless all of the individual organisms die at the same time it is theoretically possible for the colony to live forever. I wonder if we have any way of telling how old a particular colony could possibly be?

[dr_dshiv]

Blob of Theseus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

[ajuc]

> I wonder if we have any way of telling how old a particular colony could possibly be?

Maybe sequencing DNA from a lot of the individual organisms and counting how many differences there are? Older colonies should accumulate the differences, right?

[andrewflnr]

Differences relative to what? A young and old colony are still the same evolutionary distance from their last common ancestor. Even if there was some change in mutation rate once a colony is formed, it would be really hard to measure the difference. Maybe diversity within a colony is a clue?

[ajuc]

Differences between each other? IIUC the colony forms from a few individuals cloning itself over and over?

If that's the case then old colony would have more differences between the individuals than a new colony.

[9dev]

Radiocarbon dating of samples, maybe?

[323]

Radiocarbon dating only works for dead stuff:

> When the animal or plant dies, it stops exchanging carbon with its environment, and thereafter the amount of 14C it contains begins to decrease as the 14C undergoes radioactive decay. Measuring the amount of 14C in a sample from a dead plant or animal, such as a piece of wood or a fragment of bone, provides information that can be used to calculate when the animal or plant died.

[9dev]

Ah, that makes sense. Thank you.