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Comment by adriand | Hacker News Reader

Why doesn’t this process lead to much faster natural spread of plant life into more northern climates? Isn’t the process of “planting” seeds a bit further away exactly how any seed-producing plant spreads? Or is it just that humans are able to accelerate the process?

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I'd say being outcompeted by already thriving local flora. When "planting" they must have made sure that the conditions were optimal for survival (soil condition, no competing crops etc.).

I suspect one factor is the range of an orange seed is pretty small in the wild. Some rodent grabs the fallen fruit and moves it a few dozen meters away. They're probably planting tens of miles away.

It seems to me there is a step missing: plant seeds further north, some plants survive better than others even reproduce, take those survivors and repeat further north.

So not the fruit from all trees but from the ones that are better adapted. This could happen naturally but probably more slowly and also would naturally have to compete with local species.

This is the epigenetic vs plain genetic part.

I read more in this a while back, and they also dug special ditches, did some orher things, to make the environment more friendly.

Very much accelerating, for instance by geographical spread. Also a plant might have a hard time "getting started" in a certain place, and not always end up in optimal conditions. The Soviets put plants in arrangements not found in nature.

The one thing that I can think of is that the natural rate of seed spreading is slow, at least for citrus plants. (Plants like dandelion likely spread much more quickly)

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