WILD LIFE
Illustration: Alice Goodridge
Out swimming, you don’t see female dulse. At less than 1mm diameter they are invisible to the naked eye. Seaweeds reproduce via alteration of generations: there are different physical versions of the same species that complete the reproductive cycle across generations. Male and female individuals provide gametes, cells that combine in sexual reproduction to form individual sporophytes, which in turn release spores through asexual reproduction that become male and female gametophytes. Sporophytes overgrow the tiny females obscuring them from view. So, while we see the large fronds of both male and asexual sporophyte dulse, their female counterpart is invisible to us. Even for a seaweed, dulse is unconventional in its lifecycle, with the female phase being reproductive in its first year and the male phase in its second year.
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January 24
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