is a rare moss. The species also boasts the highest number of fast-evolving genes on record for a plant.spp. fossil from Mongolia, Reski and a team of researchers combined data on the shape ofis unique because on the outside, it has characteristics of earlier land plants, seemingly unchanged since it was fossilized. For example, its leaves lack the distinct topside and underside that plants have today. They also lack stomata, the leaf structure that most plants use to ‘breathe’.
But on the inside, the authors identified 121 genes that have evolved especially rapidly since then — some of which help it to survive in an extreme environment. The gene sequences contain a high number of mutations that lead to new protein variants, relative to mutations that do not alter the protein sequence.
“Having the whole genome really lets you get into the gene evolution,” says Brent Mishler, a bryologist at the University of California, Berkeley. Whole-genome sequences exist for only a few other mosses. “It was really needed.”is in trouble. Over the past decade on the Tibetan plateau, populations of the moss declined by 1.
But temperature might not be the sole cause of the plant’s decline, says Lalita Calabria, a bryologist at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. Bryophytes are sensitive to other environmental changes, such as air quality and humidity. Reski agrees that a limitation of the study is that the researchers do not yet know exactly whyThe ancient genome is a historical genetic manuscript of sorts, Mishler says, and it’s good to have a record in casegoes extinct.