What if you had a clone? An exact double? Or a Mini-Me? Human clones are not far away, and are most likely being developed in secret labs under mountains as we speak. Yet clones are not uncommon in nature, and make up a big part of our everyday. In fact, most bananas come from a single banana tree. Instead of planting new seeds, growers just found the perfect banana plant, cut a sucker off it, and then replanted it. This means that most bananas in the world actually derive from a single progenitor – the Cavendish – the banana tree after the flood.
Building on this concept of a single banana tree, the Rob Dunn claims that the banana might be considered the largest organism in the world. He compares this to a group of Aspen trees in Utah who are all clones from the same tree, connected to each other underground through their root system, known affectionately as Pando. The idea is that clones, since they are exact genetic copies, can be considered the same organism. Therefore the aggregate of the aspen clones become a single entity, the largest on earth. Dunn claims that if we were to follow this logic, then the banana plantations of the 1950s, with thousands of plants nestled together would have been the largest single organism in the world.
It is a great idea. I love the concept of an interconnected banana, a living organism that we can only see part of, like an iceberg that is an excellent source of potassium. But I have a few reservations when it comes to defining a group of clones as a single organism. The first has to do with interconnectivity. If we imagine that a series of clones are interconnected, then we have to assume that other organisms are not. Yet if one were to look at forests, they are all connected. Not just in some metaphoric sense that involves singing with all the voices of the mountain and painting with the colors of the wind, but direct interconnectivity. Rhizomes live in the soil of most forests, allowing for communication between different plants and trees. Which proves that there is communication, but these rhizomes also help share nutrients, allowing for one tree that is dying to pass its nutrients on to other neighboring trees. This kind of communication goes far and above just some talking trees, but the forest as an organism in of itself, built up by an assortment of flora that amass to a single entity. As you might think that we are the bacteria in our gut, so is the forest its denizens.
The other reservation I have is a question of individuality. This comes back to our Mini-Me. Would Dr. Evil and Mini-Me be considered the same organism? The answer to me seems simple enough: no. They act separately, think separately, they just happen to share the same DNA. Yet when it comes to non-humans, people are quick to assume differently. An animal and a tree can differentiate drastically, just as two twins can. While twins may share a connection, we do not put both on trial when one commits a crime. The truth is, DNA makes up very little of who we are, even in the case of the nonhuman world. Ronald M. Nowak writes that DNA mapping is one of the least effective ways to find out about an animal, since it cannot tell the difference between animals that we would assume were completely different. For example, Nowak, who studies wolves, cannot use DNA to find anything different about the many types of wolves that exist in the world. The same is true for white-tail, black-tail, and mule deer. I am not saying they are the same animals, more that what makes them individuals is not based off their DNA, but their context.
Every living thing cannot be divorced from their gestalt, and trees are no different. When we talk about clones, we aren’t really thinking about the exact items repeated, more a copy that individuates over time. And if we assume that they are a single entity because they are connected, that applies to all organisms. In that case, we are all one big organism, as I am connected to the trees around me, and through my friends through the computer in front of me. I am connected to the bacteria in the air, and the mouse that steals my bread. I am connected to all these things, and you could even say I am all these things, but that is unhelpful. I still have to function as myself. Therefore I need to understand that just as Mini-Me is not Dr. Evil, I am not my parents, and my bananas are not my parents’ bananas.
Bodies of Water 