Earth Day: Death of a living fossil - Oliva (Cycad)

It is a loss of a beautiful landscape that transports us to the Mesozoic world when man was not yet conceived to evolve through a long path to become what we are today.   

Dr Abe V Rotor

The  Cycad is a living fossil, older than the dinosaurs.  It appears today as it was some 200 millions years ago. Among its secrets is its benevolence as host of a variety of organisms living in a state of dynamic balance which characterizes an ecosystem. But alas! one day this beautiful palm-like tree died. It is a great loss to students in biology, for it has not been fully studied and understood.  It is a loss to a beautiful landscape that transports the viewer to the Paleozoic era when man had yet to evolve into what we are today.  . 
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Young Markus is introduced early in the study of living things with the help of his Nanny.
The twin crown once lush in radial symmetry for half a century has dried up, so with all the plants clinging on its trunk.

                                     
This  50-year old Cycad succumbed to drought and pest, bringing down all its symbionts - orchid, fern, lichen, moss, blue-green alga, and a host of small organisms from insects to reptiles - to their inevitable demise.  A tree is actually a miniature ecosystem. Thus the death of this cycad put an end to the ecosystem it built and maintained throughout its life.   

The Cycad offers vital research topics that challenge the scientific mind, particularly among our youth.  Perhaps we may learn from the prototype world of this living fossil plant answers to our ailing health and deteriorating environment. Indeed the Cycad is Nature's primordial laboratory of natural history

A. Medicine and Pharmacology

• Presence of aromatase inhibitors
• Lectin and Peptide Analysis
• Antimicrobial and Antioxidant
• Bactericidal/Antibacterial properties
• Chitinase isolation and analysis

B. Biology and Ecology

• CO2 and pollution tolerance
• Nitrogen-fixation with cyanobacterium 
• Lichen and floral composition
• Species diversity and phylogeny
• Evolution and longevity

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Cycads are gymnosperms (naked seeded), meaning their unfertilized seeds are open to the air to be directly fertilized by pollination, as contrasted with angiosperms, which have enclosed seeds with more complex fertilization arrangements. Cycads have very specialized pollinators, usually a specific species of beetle. They have been reported to fix nitrogen in association with a cyanobacterium living in the roots. These blue-green algae produce a neurotoxin called BMAA that is found in the seeds of cycads. This neurotoxin may enter a human food chain as the cycad seeds may be eaten directly as a source of flour by humans or by wild or feral animals such as bats, and humans may eat these animals. It is hypothesized that this is a source of some neurological diseases in humans. (Internet)