Ancient Moss Survived 165 Million Years at High Altitudes, but May Not Adapt to the Threats of Climate Change

A fast-evolving moss found in the Himalayas has defied extinction for 165 million years and is now considered the oldest moss species in the world. However, it struggles to adapt to modern climate change and faces the threat of being extinct.

Remarkable Adaptation to Extremes

A rare moss known as Takakia lepidozioides is considered the most primitive liverwort on Earth. It belongs to a genus that has been around for 400 million years.

Almost 165 million years ago, a green fuzz of mossy vegetation lay beneath dinosaurs' feet. As the Indian tectonic plate began colliding with the Eurasian plate 65 million years ago, the Himalayas Mountain range and Tibetan plateau started to form. During this process, Takakia lepidozioides rode along the new landscape and learned to adapt to their new frozen, sunny habitat.

Today, this plant grows with its relative Takakia ceratophylla on the Tibetan plateau. Each species can also live independently in places such as British Columbia and Alaska.

Scientists from the University of Freiburg in Germany studied this long-surviving moss. Led by plant biotechnologist Ralf Reski, the team spent a decade hiking some parts of the Himalayas at altitudes as high as 2.5 miles (4,000 meters).

In the plant kingdom, the bryophytes consist of liverworts, mosses, and hornworts. Previous scientists could not identify the kind of bryophyte to which Takakia belongs because it has combined features of all the members of bryophytes. Using a Takakia fossil from Mongolia, Reski and his colleagues combined data on the shape of Takakia lepidozioides and its genome to understand the evolution of this moss genus.

Their study revealed that Takakia is a rare moss, and its species has the highest number of fast-evolving genes for a plant. These mosses have seen the dinosaurs evolve, become extinct, and remain standing after millions of years.

Threats from Climate Change

The study also suggests that Takakia faces trouble from the modern environment. Over the past decade, it was observed that their populations on the Tibetan plateau have declined annually by 1.6%, which is faster than other local species of moss.

According to Reski, even if Takakia is considered a highly specialized organism capable of evolving in specific habitats, they are doomed to suffer more than other organisms as climate change negatively affects their environment. The decline in the population of this rare moss correlates with an annual increase in temperature of almost 0.5 degrees Celsus between 2010 and 2021.

Climate change might not significantly contribute to the plant's population drop. According to bryologist Lalita Calabria from the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, other elements such as air quality and humidity can also play significant roles.

As the need to protect Takakia becomes more urgent, scientists explore ways to preserve the population of this ancient moss. Experts attempt to do so by cultivating laboratory plant samples and reintroducing them to their native habitat.