Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Brookshire, Bethany

Titel

Climate change threatens oldest moss

Ist Teil von

• Science news (Washington), 2023-09, Vol.204 (4), p.11

Ort / Verlag

Washington: Society for Science & the Public

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The world's oldest type of moss has seen four mass extinctions -- but may not survive climate change. The genus Takakia has the highest number of fast-evolving genes of any moss, researchers report August 9 in Cell. A decade-long study of Takakia in the Himalayas shows that it's well-adapted to its high-altitude home, with resistance to extreme cold and intense ultraviolet light But no matter how fast its genes can change, rapidly rising temperatures in the region were associated with a decrease in the moss's range -- a faster decrease than any of the mosses around it. The two species of Takakia are unlike any other plant in the world. "The evolutionary position of Takakia in plants is like that of platypus in mammals," says Yikun He, a plant geneticist at the Capital Normal University in Beijing. Takakia branched off from the other mosses about 390 million years ago.