Bumping into Bryophytes in Literature

It always amuses me when I bump into bryophytes when reading, especially when it is my recreational fiction reading. It is pretty common for mosses to be described as part of the background scenery, such as 'The lush verdant forest was covered in a layer of soft moss'. Mosses are also used as part of a survival strategy either as an insulating layer to keep warm or an absorptive padding to pack a wound. Using mosses for wound care is not a fictional idea, but was actually a practice in World War I. Sphagnum mosses are highly absorptive and have antimicrobial properties, which make them ideal for this purpose. But I digress.

Recently I finished reading Margaret Atwood's MaddAdam trilogy and came across the passage pictured here. The Festival of Bryophyta-the-Moss! I was super excited, because The Festival of Cnidaria (jellyfish) was described in such amazing detail with the costumes, games, and even a play about the jellyfish lifecycle! It is a biologist's dream to have festivals focused around different lineages of organisms! Unfortunately I don't think that Atwood consulted with a bryophyte expert, because the above quote is it. A shout out to bryophytes without additional elaboration. No play of the moss lifecycle regaling us with the alternation of phases. I can see it now, in interpretive dance format. The moss emerging from a little spore to begin its life on the moist soil...

I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Taking the moss life cycle into a visual format using people could have made for some great imagery. Instead you can check out the video here for a take on the life cycle with all the stages explained. If you are in to post-apocalyptic tales I would highly recommend the MaddAdam trilogy for your next literary adventure. 

May 2015 Desktop Calendar

Some red Sphagnum mosses mixed in with a succulent vascular plant from my travels to Chile this past winter. Oh to be walking barefoot on the cool wet peat. It would be a great contrast to the warm weather we have been having here in Davis already. Full-blown summer is just around the corner!

1 - Single click on the image to open it up in a new window. (If you use the image directly from the blog post you will lose a lot of resolution.)

2 - Right-click (or ctrl-click) on the image, and chose the option that says, "Set as Desktop Background" or "Use Image as Desktop Picture" or "Save Image As...". The wording may vary. (If saving the image to your computer is the only option, then locate it on your computer and choose the "Set as Desktop Background" or "Use Image as Desktop Picture" option from there.)

3 - If the image does not fit your desktop neatly, you may have to adjust the image (Mac: System Preferences - Desktop and Screen Saver - Desktop; Windows: Control Panel - Display - Desktop) and choose "Fill screen" as the display mode of your background image.

February 2015 Desktop Calendar

Happy belated February! This past month was a whirlwind of science and adventures for me. I spent the past month in Chile attending the International Association of Bryologists conference and then I went backpacking for a few weeks. I have hundreds of bryophyte photos and many fun stories to tell. As soon as I get settled in my plan is to share many of them with you all here. 

So stay tuned for tales from Chile. In the meantime enjoy the Tetraplodon pictured below. We saw it while walking around in a Sphagnum-dominated peat bog barefoot! 

1 - Single click on the image to open it up in a new window. (If you use the image directly from the blog post you will lose a lot of resolution.)

2 - Right-click (or ctrl-click) on the image, and chose the option that says, "Set as Desktop Background" or "Use Image as Desktop Picture" or "Save Image As...". The wording may vary. (If saving the image to your computer is the only option, then locate it on your computer and choose the "Set as Desktop Background" or "Use Image as Desktop Picture" option from there.)

3 - If the image does not fit your desktop neatly, you may have to adjust the image (Mac: System Preferences - Desktop and Screen Saver - Desktop; Windows: Control Panel - Display - Desktop) and choose "Fill screen" as the display mode of your background image.

Turve = Peat in Finnish

A postdoc pal recently came back from visiting family in Finland and brought me this gift for managing the postdoc seminar series here at UC Davis while she was away. 

I love the hand-build soap dish. I have been a potter for the last 8 years, so I don't by pottery very often, especially if it is something I can make myself. So getting some as a gift is quite the treat. And best of all the soap is made from peat moss! I can't see any stems of Sphagnum mixed in the soap, but it does smell a bit like peat moss. I will definitely enjoy using this mossy-filled soap! 

Thanks Dr. Kajala!

Translation of the first four lines.
Osmia
Domestic, Hand-made
Peat
Rapeseed Oil Soap

Mosses back from the holidays

I am back from the holidays and some moss photography and blogging is on the menu for my upcoming weekend. 

In the meantime, check out this great post by Juan Carlos Villarreal on Peat, Whiskey, and Genomes. It is jam packed with fun moss facts, references, and lovely photos.

Have you heard of Bogology?

Have you heard of Bogology? Probably not, because I think it is a bit of a newly invented term. Bogology is the study and science of peatlands. I just heard about this new website and blog by researchers from the United Kingdom who are studying peatlands. If you are interested in peat bogs and Sphagnum mosses, the information and discussions they have will be right up your alley.

Thanks to Dr. Kaisa Kajala for making me aware of this site!

August 2013 Desktop Calendar

Two weeks ago I was in New Orleans for the Botany 2013 meeting, this past week I took some vacation time to do some hiking in New Hampshire, and this upcoming week I am off to a Plant Development meeting in Vermont. It has been a whirl-wind time reconnecting with colleagues, friends, and family. Apologies that the August desktop calendar is a little late. Hopefully you have been enjoying the summer weather and calendars have been far from your mind.

The image below shows some Sphagnum mosses with capsules. I took it on our hike up Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire. It was a good hike and really great to see so much lush summer vegetation!

1 - Single click on the image to open it up in a new window. (If you use the image directly from the blog post you will lose a lot of resolution.)

2 - Right-click (or ctrl-click) on the image, and chose the option that says, "Set as Desktop Background" or "Use as Desktop Picture". The wording may vary.

3 - If the image does not fit your desktop neatly, you may have to adjust the image (Mac: System Preferences - Desktop and Screen Saver - Desktop; Windows: Control Panel - Display - Desktop) and choose "Fill screen" as the display mode of your background image.

Mosses without Sex for 50,000 years

Karlin, E. F., Hotchkiss, S. C., Boles, S. B., Stenøien, H. K., Hassel, K., Flatberg, K. I. and Shaw, A. J. (2011), High genetic diversity in a remote island population system: sans sex. New Phytologist

This is a super cool article! The research was reported on both at National Geographic Daily News and Science Daily. I decided not to write my own summary of the research, since these two articles do such a good job. Check out these two sites for highlights of the research, which also includes an interview with the lead author. Scientific communication in action!  

Chemical Competition in Peatland Plants using the Moss Sphagnum

Laboratory Resources for High School Biology Teachers

These laboratory exercises were designed to help students to better understand the concept of chemical competition in ecology using the moss Sphagnum. These exercises aim to show students that not all competition is carried out by animals and not all competition is a physical battle, as most of the traditional examples show. By using the chemical alteration of the environment by Sphagnum, students can also be taught about pH, in a biological framework. As a result, the labs can be used in either an ecology unit or a chemistry unit, within a biology course.

(Click here to link to my website where you can download the powerpoint, laboratory exercises and notes for free.)

Powerpoint Introduction – Includes 15 slides that introduce the concepts of competition, ion exchange in Sphagnum mosses and succession in peatlands.

Laboratory Exercise 1 – The ability to alter the pH of the water surrounding it is compared between Sphagnum moss and another non-moss aquatic plant.

Laboratory Exercise 2 – The ability of Sphagnum to alter the pH of the water surrounding it is compared with and without additional ions.

Teacher’s Notes – Pre-laboratory preparation, data collection, and Sphagnum collection are covered.

Credits: These resources were developed by Jon Swanson, M.S. (Edwin O. Smith High School, Storrs, CT), Jessica Budke, M.S., and Bernard Goffinet Ph.D. (Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT) funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation (DEB-0919284).

Conservation of the Western Moss Reserve

I just saw this article on the BBC News about the designation of a peat bog as an United Kingdom Reserve to protect the large heath butterfly. This is great news for this species of butterfly, the mosses and other organisms that call the bog home!

More Sphagnum research

Directly after the article that I posted about earlier this week was another on Sphagnum by Dr. Eric Karlin and colleagues.

Eric F. Karlin, Sandra B. Boles, Rodney D. Seppelt, Stefano Terracciano, and A. Jonathan Shaw. 2011. The Peat Moss Sphagnum cuspidatum in Australia: Microsatellites Provide a Global Perspective. Systematic Botany 36(1):22-32.

I have yet to read the paper, but here is my non-technical summary of the abstract.

Want to now more about the controversy surrounding the species Sphagnum cuspidatum? Back in the day it was thought to grow on all continents except Antarctica. More recently scientists have proposed that it is limited to Europe and eastern North America. Herein the authors ask the question who is right? Does this species really grow all over the world or does it have a more restricted range? (Cue the dramatic music.) Plants from all over the world were gathered, DNA was removed from their cells and used in some cool science work with microsatelites. The researchers found that Sphagnum cuspidatum grows worldwide in places including Australia, the Philippines, Columbia, and Equatorial Guinea in addition to Europe and eastern North America. And the mystery has been illuminated! Though in science there is always room for more data, and thus reinterpretation of previous results. So this might not be the last word.

A Peat Moss Conquering America

Sphagnum peat moss made the news over at BBC Earth News last week. The title of the paper tells it all "One haploid parent contributes 100% of the gene pool for a widespread species in northwest North America". I could go on to try and give my own take on this research, but I think that the BBC article does a good job of hitting the highlights. All the other mentions of this research seem to point back to this BBC article. Way to go BBC mentioning some cutting edge bryo-research!

Here is a link to the abstract for the journal article. To access the full publication you may need to have a subscription through your library. 

Thanks to my pal Kathryn for forwarding me this article!

A Tale of the Sphagnums that Weren't

There are over 350 different species of peat moss in the genus Sphagnum. All of them have a similar morphology with two different types of cells that make up their leaves. Large cells that are dead at maturity and small cells that are alive and contain green chloroplasts. The large hyaline cells have pores that open to the outside of the plant. When they fill with water they enable the plant to function as a sponge and hold up to 20X its dry weight in water. This is the feature that makes Sphagnum peat mosses the most economically important mosses in the world.

Below you can see both the large dead cells and small, green, live cells in a transverse section of a Sphagnum peat moss leaf.
  

I just finished reading a recent scientific article on peat mosses.

A. Jonathan Shaw, Cymon J. Cox, William R. Buck, Nicolas Devos, Alex M. Buchanan, Lynette Cave, Rodney Seppelt, Blanka Shaw, Juan Larraín, Richard Andrus, Johann Greilhuber and Eva M. Temsch. 2010. Newly resolved relationships in an early land plant lineage: Bryophyta class Sphagnopsida (peat mosses). American Journal of Botany 97:1511-1531.


These researchers set out to look at the relationships among the many species of Sphagnum peat mosses. Often plants or animals are initially grouped together based on their morphology (how they look on the outside). This has been the case with peat mosses too.  Using DNA sequence data, these scientists determined that some species traditionally placed in the genus Sphagnum really fall outside of this group. Since they no longer lie within Sphagnum they needed some new names.

One was given a new genus name (from Sphagnum inretortum to Eosphagnum inretortum) and placed into an already established family (Ambuchananiaceae). The prefix eo- means early or primitive, thus this would be the 'early peat moss'. For the other, both a new genus and family was created for the species (from Sphagnum sericeumm to Flatbergium sericeum in the Flatbergiaceae). I looked through the paper for some insight into the etymology of this name, but I did not think they mentioned anything specific about the naming.

Both still close relatives to their abandoned Sphagnum buddies. I know that the changing of plant and animal names may seem like a pain or trivial, but understanding which species are each others closest relatives is important. For example if you have a food allergy to a particular type of plant it is important to know who its close relatives are, because you might be allergic to them too. Or we might stumble across a new chemical in a plant that could be used in a medicine. Knowing that plant's relatives may help us to find similar kinds of helpful chemicals in other plants. Just something to think about when you hear about scientists changing the names of your favorite plant or animal.

Above is a surface view of the two different types of cells in a Sphagnum leaf.

The Moss Videos of the Moment

Apologies, the blog took a bit of a summer vacation while I focused on writing up the first chapter of my PhD dissertation. It reminded me of the hiatus the Puzzler takes on the NPR program Car Talk. It may be a slow transition back to posting often, but I am going to start by shooting for once a week.

The latest news in the moss world has been the publication of an article in Science magazine on the explosive vortex caused by Sphagnum capsules opening. It is the same opening mechanism that I discussed in a post back in April. 

You can link here to the full article Whitaker DL & J Edwards. 2010. Sphagnum Moss Disperses Spores with Vortex Rings. Science 329:406. And here for the four amazing high speed videos that are posted online. 

If you prefer to listen to the news, you can hear more about this study on the Science Magazine Podcast for 23 July 2010. The piece on Sphagnum runs from 12:52 to 20:50 in this episode.

You can tell it is the talk of the town, because all sorts of outlets have been posting about it. They feature it over here at the International Association of Bryologists blog and at Wired Science and on Discover Magazine and the New York Times and at ScienceNews, so you get the idea. This is the hot moss story of the moment. So if you have yet to hear the full story and see the great videos check out some of the links above. 

Sphagnum capsules

Sphagnum mosses (peat mosses) have a capsule with a really interesting manner of spore release. They open with an explosive *pop* that can be heard when this moss is close by. The mechanism by which this occurs has been described as internal air pressure building up as the capsules dry, shooting the lid off the top. This is the only type of moss that has an explosive opening, thus it has attracted some interest.

In lab group we recently read a paper that explored this mechanism to try to figure out the processes involved in their explosive opening.

Duckett, JG, S Pressel, KMY P'ng, KS Renzaglia. (2009) Exploding a myth: the capsule dehiscence mechanism and the function of pseudostomata in Sphagnum. 183:1053-1063.

I don't have any photos that illustrate the cool little capsules, but you can link here to the image gallery at the British Bryological Society to check them out (listed under Sphagnum fimbriatum).

In the above research study, they carried out a seemingly obvious, but previously unexamined experiment. They poked holes in the capsules, dried them out and then observed how many of the capsules opened explosively. With holes in the capsule air pressure should not be able to build up inside and you would predict that the lid would not pop off.

Despite poking holes in the capsules the lids still popped off. So the explosive nature is probably not due to a buildup of pressure. The researchers propose that the mechanism to explode off the lid is due to shrinkage of the capsule walls. The side walls of the capsule buckle in and the rigid lid (operculum) flies off.

I think that it is super cool when simple experiments can be used to test seemingly established biological ideas. It is even more fun when the results turn the established idea upside down. Boy, science is cool! 

2009 Andrew's Foray Continued

One of the sites we visited on the foray was a Cat Den Swamp. There really weren't any areas of open water and the area was dominated by Sphagnum (peat moss). Thus I would have characterized it as a bog rather than a swamp. Bogs are really great habitats to visit. Boots are definitely a necessity or you could go for a pair of bare feet during the summer. I have been to some bogs that are like walking on a water-bed. This one was not that type. It was on full of slurpy sounds that almost pulled my boots off at times.

Above it can be seen that there are many shrubs in this area.

In addition to a lot of peat moss. They ranged in color from light green (above) to a burnt red (below). I didn't collect any Sphagnum mosses, nor did I try to identify them to species. I appreciate and enjoy peat moss much more on an larger ecological scale. They are cool to walk among but I'd rather not key them out to species under the microscope.

Mosses on The Colbert Report

I saw an episode of the Colbert Report last night and moss landscaping/gardening was featured in one of the jokes. You know that things are becoming more popular when they reach the late night comedy shows.

In part of the sketch he mentions turning a backyard koi pond into a peat bog. This statement is actually not impossible. Sphagnum sp. (peat moss) has the ability to change the acidity (pH) of the water in which it lives. It makes the water more acidic, which is better for the moss and usually worse for many of the other plants. Colbert did forget to mention that turning a koi pond into a bog will probably also kill all the koi.

If you are interested in cutting directly to the mossy reference it starts around 3:50min.

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Mosses Featured at United States National Parks

I did a search recently because I was interested to see how many of our National Parks discuss or feature the mosses that live in the parks. Here are a few of the interesting pages that I found and my comments on them. (They are not arranged in any particular order.)

Mt Ranier National Park - Washington
In 1939 Dr. E. T. Bodenberg wrote a moss flora about this park. It has a really thorough introduction that covers everything from the moss life cycle to how particular features of the park affect the mosses growing there. A checklist of the mosses in the park and a key to their identification is also included. Also interesting to note is that samples of all of the species included in this flora have been collected and placed in the park's herbarium. A herbarium is a collection of dried plant samples associated with location information that acts as a natural history record of the plants from a particular area.

Denali National Park and Preserve - Alaska
This park has a very animated and detailed section about the mosses. They also include an informative list of reasons for bryophytes being so broadly distributed across the globe.

Arches National Park - Utah
This park has a really great page discussing desert mosses and their ability to survive long dry periods (aka. desiccation).

Cape Krusenstern National Monuemant - Alaska
Sphagnum sp. (peat moss) is mentioned as a major player in the tundra habitat that is dominant at this location.

Canyonlands National Park - Utah
This site pretty much reuses the same information and photo as those at Arches National Park. I think that it is all still applicable since the habitat in the two locations is probably very similar. However more bryophyte details specific to the park would have been appreciated.

Grand Teton National Park - Wyoming
This park has a really great page that highlights the mosses and liverworts and the role that they play in this park.

Shenandoah National Park - Virginia
This park quotes the number of bryophytes that they have growing at the park = 208 species of moss and 58 species of liverwort. They also list some references and website links for more bryophyte information. The websites look to have good information and are associated with major universities. I think that their liverwort book selection is good, while their moss recommendation is a 2 volume set that costs ~$300. I would recommend a library if you are interested in checking out this thorough work on mosses.
(Pet Peeve: Below the photo it describes the mosses as 'fruiting'. That term is commonly used but biologically incorrect. Bryophytes do not form flowers, seeds or fruits! But fruiting is an easier term to use than sporing, which is not a technical or even real term. It could just be said that they are reproducing.)

ParkWise - Educational Resources for Alaskan National Parks
Mosses are included as part of this exercise about successional plants.

Redwood National & State Parks - California
Bandelier National Monument - New Mexico
Both of these parks mention moss being used by birds as nesting material.

National Battlefield Park - Virginia
This park has a page with a nice photo that features the mosses and liverworts.

I hope that you enjoy these webpages about mosses and liverworts living at our National parks, preserves, and monuments. If you have any stories about the bryophytes at your local parks feel free to share them in the comments section.

Moss Stickers

I was cleaning out my office drawers and came across a mossy item that I had not seen in months. (My office drawers tend to become a disaster over the course of the semester.) It was a sticker book made from my moss photos, many of which have been used on this blog. The company that I used is at www.moo.com and is based out of the UK. I had heard about them from somewhere and really liked the idea of making a sticker book. The books come with 16 perforated pages and you can upload a large number of images. I think that I could have had every sticker in the book of a different photo. Instead I picked a set of 12 that I liked, because I knew I would be giving them away. I passed out sheets of these stickers to my labmates and many of them ended up on the fronts of their laboratory notebooks. It wasn't exactly where I had imagined them sticking, but they seem to have enjoyed them. I even have a couple of sheets left! Now I just have to decide where to stick them...

The Stickers shown in the photo from upper left to right: Polytrichum gametophyte stems with fall leaves, Polytrichum stems up close, and Funaria hygrometica. Second Row: Leucobryum mixed with Dicranum, Leucobryum tuft, and Leucobryum upclose. Lower sheet, top row: Anacamptodon capsule, Tetraphis gemmae cups, and Sphagnum. And finally Sphagnum leaf cross section, Tetraphis peristome teeth at the top of the capsule, and Tetraphis gemmae.

Poetry that Mentions Moss

This is an excerpt of the poem Cloudberry Summer by Amy Clampitt. I have not read any of her poetry, besides this excerpt. I just heard about this mossy mentioning through the grapevine and decided to pass it along.

This poem can be found in its entirety in the poetry collection entitled 'What the Light Was Like'.

First verse of the poem Cloudberry Summer by Amy Clampitt

First ventured into
in mid-July, the bog's sodden hollow
muffled the uproar of the shore
it hunkered in the lee of. Wrung residues
of sphagnum moss steeped in self-
manufactured acids stained the habitat's
suffusing waters brown...

The biology in this poem is completely accurate. Sphagnum moss actually makes the water that it lives in more acidic by releasing hydrogen ions and thus decreasing the pH of the bog water. Amazing, poetry and biology all wrapped into one!