Sphagnum Subnitens Peat Moss: The Plant That Conquered America

What do Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte and peat moss have in common? Apparently, they all conquered nations.

According to BBC, a study published in Molecular Ecology has found that the common peat moss Sphagnum subnitens is genetically identical across northwestern North America. What does this mean? It means that every sample originated from a single parent. And this parent apparently conquered North America in under 300 years.

A similar situation exists in New Zealand, where all of the peat moss is from just two parent plants. Plant ecologists find these results "extremely surprising," in part because Europe has a wide variety of S. subnitens mosses. The researchers in fact argue that this is "the most genetically uniform group of plants having a widespread distribution yet detected."

Before these researchers (hailing from Ramapo College, Binghamton University, and Duke University) began their study, there had been no other research on this plant's genetic relationships. Once the study was underway, Professor Eric Karlin says they discovered "100% of the gene pool was contributed by one individual." Talk about extreme plant narcissism.

S. subnitens may be able to do this because of a unique way of reproducing, where one parent produces genetically identical egg and sperm. This in turn produces offspring with two copies of identical DNA, and thus the offspring are genetically the same as their parent. This form of reproduction is also seen in ferns and some other seedless plants.

So just how did one plant come to conquer North America? It is believed that a single founder plant arrived from Europe between the 18th and 20th centuries and then started reproducing.

In what may be a successful case for inbreeding, the plant population appears to be in good health and does not seem to have suffered due to a lack of diversity.

This specific type of peat moss grows in bogs and forms carpets of various colors. The conquering plant is just a few centimeters tall... perhaps it has a Napoleon complex?

Comments

[izmunuti]

02:08 AM on 01/20/2011

So, what are its natural predators? What eats this stuff?

[baxtron]

02:03 PM on 01/19/2011

Getting rid of Buckthorn in MN

[angrymanspokane]

02:10 PM on 01/17/2011

Kudzu...

[owlsocks]

11:17 AM on 01/16/2011

This might have been an interesting story, if not for all of the idiotic attempts at tongue-in-cheek humour by its author.

[Indigo1941]

10:13 AM on 01/16/2011

The English sparrow.

[thebigbike]

05:54 PM on 01/15/2011

It's my understanding that colonies of argentine black ants preesntly invading vast stretches of the US and displacing native ant species are all a single genetic type, so that each colony is the same as every other one and the individual colonies do not compete with each other, but only with the native species they recognize as different. This is unpleasant to me, because one of the species they are displacing is a major food source for the horned lizard "horned toad" of the western US, one of the cutest little critters around.

[MichaelAKD]

05:02 PM on 01/15/2011

dandelions also,...even near timberline in the rockies you can see whole swaths of yellow late june, early july and all from a plant that didn't exist here until a few hundred years ago.

[Raccoon1]

07:49 PM on 01/15/2011

Blackberries in the NW US.

[bagelmart]

01:45 PM on 01/15/2011

Oops, that should have been
The Moss With The Mostest.

[bagelmart]

01:45 PM on 01/15/2011

The Most With The Mostest.

[Vantunow]

12:28 PM on 01/15/2011

What about Randy Moss?

[TequilaWhsperer]

12:20 PM on 01/15/2011

Agave plants (the kind that make TEQUILA) function in the same genetic way as peat moss apparently does. Their offspring are genetically identical o the parent.

SalUd!
-Lippy

[TheBurdicks]

12:14 PM on 01/15/2011

Two uncontrolled manmade invasions of alien species wreaking extensive environmental mischief in their new habitat, each in a place close to my heart:
Around the turn of the century, tamarisk, Tamarix ramosissim, was brought from Eurasia to the wild rivers and red rock canyons of the Colorado Plateau to stabilize river banks. Tamarisk spread throughout the high desert river systems, and in a few decades, choked out native willow and other vegetation, obliterating sandy riverside beaches popular as recreational sites. The solution was another Eurasian import, the tamarisk beetle, Diorhabda carinulata, which has now devoured almost all tamarisk foliage, the new primary nesting site of the increasingly endangered Willow Flycatcher, Empidonax traillii. No one knows what the tamarisk beetle will eat next after its infestation finishes off the tamarisk and the Willow Flycatcher.
In southern Louisiana, nutria, Myocastor coypus, from Argentina, escaped from commercial fur farms to become an environmental hazard, carrying the parasite, Strongyloides myopotami , the cause of human "nutria itch", eating immature vegetation of the endangered bald cypress , Taxodium distichum, seriously threatening bald cypress forests recovering from near extinction through logging, and most seriously, destroying 10’s of thousands of acres of marsh vegetation which anchors sedimentary soil in the seriously threatened (by oil companies and the Corps of Engineers) wetlands which protect coastal Louisiana from hurricane surges. So far, paid trapping, encouragement of “sport“ shooting, promotion of nutria fur harvesting, and even efforts to convince Cajuns to eat nutria, have failed to control them.

[AuntieM57]

10:31 PM on 01/15/2011

Speaking of invasions of the high desert, the ringneck dove has invaded the eastern Sierras displacing the mourning dove. I've watched an original mated pair increase to over a hundred in 3 seasons just in my neighborhood. The mourning dove are now the minority. Ringneck dove are thought to be imports from Africa and were once kept only as pets. Unfortunately, these pets were released and have adapted very well to even our extreme climate. Our Tamarisks are still doing very well, thank you!

[charon]

02:42 AM on 01/17/2011

I live in the foothills of the western Sierra. Tamarisk do quite well here, along with ailanthus, star thistle, mustard, broom, bullfrogs, wild oats, and over a hundred other invasive species, like dogs, cats, and Euro-Americans.

[minidriver]

12:11 PM on 01/15/2011

Is it an invasive plant that kills off other plants and animals or is it a plant than can co-exist with the native flora and fauna? I would guess that it is the latter.

[2SoonOld2LateSmart]

11:49 AM on 01/15/2011

Guesses that this is harvested material used as a moisture retainer in potting and tree replanting soils, and therefore an "invader" having a useful purpose. Too bad most of the others don't, but if they did they probably wouldn't be called invaders, would they? :)

[GuyOttawa]

11:08 AM on 01/15/2011

Hopefully this moss doesn't follow in Columbus' footsteps and start killing all the natives and using their skin to test the sharpness of their knives.