Charles Darwin first published his seminal work on evolution more than 150 years ago. Since that time, one particular question of how new species form has confounded scientists. But a study of palms on remote Lord Howe Island is changing that and helping to solve the evolutionary mystery.
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00:00These palms may look similar, but they're actually two different species.
00:09The two palms we have at Lord Howe Island, they evolved on this tiny island while they're living next to each other.
00:17The first proof in the world of sympatric speciation.
00:21That means they evolved from a common ancestor despite a lack of geographic separation,
00:27a process so rare even Darwin considered it unlikely.
00:31We found something totally different from what we believed was the case for species diversity.
00:37So imagine a few humans on an island for one million years.
00:43Nobody would think that they would evolve into different species, but actually plants do.
00:49This sandy soil.
00:51Now the soil here is helping scientists understand why.
00:55A 20 year study of Kentia palms suggests fungi has been a major influence on their evolution.
01:03So what we are discovering is that the relationship between this fungi and the plants is very intimate.
01:11And actually the plant and the fungi can make like specific partnership that allows them to sort of survive stressful conditions.
01:22And Lord Howe Island's isolation from human contact until the late 1700s is providing the ideal scientific control.
01:32Lord Howe Island is like a natural laboratory for evolutionary biology.
01:37So this is the controlled environment of the experiment.
01:40One tray will have mycorrhizae and one won't from the same area.
01:44What we're trying to achieve here is to see the differences in growing or the germination rate or the size of what's been grown.
01:53This may all sound like something out of a high school biology class, but those involved in the project say it has real world applications to help people and the planet adapt in the face of climate change.
02:05So the more we understand about these processes, then the better we are able to conserve the environment that are left.
02:15And potentially solve a biological mystery millions of years in the making.
02:21Aaron Sheehan