''Ceratodon purpureus'' is a

dioicous Dioicy () is a sexual system where archegonia and antheridia are produced on separate gametophytes. It is one of the two main sexual systems in bryophytes. Both dioicous () and monoicous gametophytes produce gametes in gametangia by mitosis ra ...

moss with a color ranging from yellow-green to red. The height amounts to 3 centimeters. It is found worldwide, mainly in urban areas and next to roads on dry sand soils. It can grow in a very wide variety of habitats, from

polluted Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the ...

highway shoulders and

mine tailings In mining, tailings are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different to overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overl ...

to areas recently denuded by

wildfire A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identi ...

to the bright slopes of

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...

. Its common names include redshank, purple forkmoss, ceratodon moss, fire moss, and purple horn toothed moss.

Description

Fire moss is a native, short moss that forms dense tufts or sometimes cushions.Shaw, J.; Jules, E. S.; Beer, S. C. 1991. Effects of metals on growth, morphology, and reproduction of Ceratodon purpureus. Bryologist. 94(3): 270-277.Bland, John H. 1971. Forests of Lilliput. The realm of mosses and lichens. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. The stems are erect, usually about 0.5 inch (1.3 cm) long. The upper 0.19 inch (0.5 cm) is current year's growth; often slightly branched by forking at the tip of the old growth.Dunham, Elizabeth Marie. 1951. How to know the mosses: a popular guide to the mosses of the United States. Boston, MA: The Mosher Press. The stems sometimes become 2.4 to 3.1 inches (7–8 cm) long in shaded places.Grout, A. J. 1932. Moss flora of North America, north of Mexico. Vol. 3. Part 3. New York: The author. Leaves are short and hairlike, spreading when moist; somewhat folded or twisted when dry. Fire moss contains photoprotective pigments, which are a useful adaptation for the bright Antarctic environment.Post, A. 1990. Photoprotective pigment as an adaptive strategy in the Antarctic moss Ceratodon purpureus. Polar Biology. 10(4): 241-246. Leaf pigment varies from green to ginger.

Distribution and habitat

Fire moss likely occurs in every country throughout the world but is possibly replaced by closely related taxa in tropical latitudes.Ireland, R. R. 1982. Moss flora of the Maritime Provinces. Publications in Botany No. 13. ttawa, ON National Museum of Natural Sciences. It is widespread throughout Canada, where it is known from every province and territory. In the United States it occurs in every state. Fire moss is able to tolerate much higher pollution levels than other mosses.Richardson, D. H. 1981. The biology of mosses. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications. It is common in urban and industrial environments subjected to a variety of pollutants, along highways, and on the tailings and refuse associated with both coal and heavy-metal mining activities. Fire moss is often found on disturbed sites. It occurs on a wide range of substrates including soil, rock, wood, humus, old roofs, sand, and cracks of sidewalks. It is most abundant on exposed, compact, mineral, dry, gravelly or sandy soils but tolerates a wide range of soil textures. Sand dunes close to water in Scotland are colonized by fire moss, which grows between the shoots of grasses.

Life cycle

Fire moss is dioecious, reproducing generatively with spores and

vegetatively Vegetative reproduction (also known as vegetative propagation, vegetative multiplication or cloning) is any form of asexual reproduction occurring in plants in which a new plant grows from a fragment or cutting of the parent plant or spec ...

through

protonema A protonema (plural: protonemata) is a thread-like chain of cells that forms the earliest stage of development of the gametophyte (the haploid phase) in the life cycle of mosses. When a moss first grows from a spore, it starts as a ''germ tube'', ...

ta. The capsules are held horizontally on the end of a long seta (fruit stalk). Fire moss generally fruits abundantly. Wind is the main method of spore dispersal.Perez, Francisco L. 1991. Ecology and morphology of globular mosses of Grimmia longirostris in the Paramo de Piedras Blancas, Venezuelan Andes. Arctic and Alpine Research. 23(2): 133-148. Spore germination in fire moss is a two-phase process. Spores first swell then distend.Olesen, Peter; Mogensen, Gert Steen. 1978. Ultrastructure, histochemistry and notes on germination stages of spores in selected mosses. The Bryologist. 81(4): 493-516. Usually the setae are present in great numbers in the colony; with changes in humidity they twist and untwist. This movement helps to jerk the capsules, helping in spore discharge. Possibly the contraction of the grooves in the capsule at maturity also helps to squeeze out the spores. Spores of fire moss have remained viable even after drying for 16 years. Fire moss reproduces vegetatively via protonemata (threadlike or platelike growths).Auclair, A. N. D. 1983. The role of fire in lichen-dominated tundra and forest-tundra. In: Wein, Ross W.; MacLean, David A., eds. The role of fire in northern circumpolar ecosystems. Scope 18. New York: John Wiley & Sons: 235-256. Fire moss sporophytes appear early in the spring, as soon as the snow melts. In March, the setae reach their full height and begin to turn from green to red. Capsules mature by late spring. By midsummer the capsules often decay, and the setae break from the moss.

Microarthropod-mediated fertilization

A 2012 study has found that male and female fire moss emit different and complex volatile organic scents. Female plants emit more compounds than male plants.

Springtails Springtails (Collembola) form the largest of the three lineages of modern hexapods that are no longer considered insects (the other two are the Protura and Diplura). Although the three orders are sometimes grouped together in a class called Ent ...

were found to choose female plants preferentially, and the study found that springails enhance moss fertilization. All together, the results seem to suggest a plant-pollinator relationship analogous to those found in flowering plants.

Ecology

Fire moss prefers low competition and high light; however, it is somewhat shade tolerant, and has, for example, been reported to grow in artificially illuminated caves. It is a colonizer of disturbed sites and readily invades mineral soil by spores. Fire moss is typically found associated with other species characteristic of disturbed sites such as fireweed (''

Epilobium angustifolium ''Chamaenerion angustifolium'' is a perennial herbaceous flowering plant in the willowherb family Onagraceae. It is known in North America as fireweed, in some parts of Canada as great willowherb, in Britain and Ireland as rosebay willowherb. I ...

'') and pearly everlasting ('' Anaphalis margaritacea'').Cormack, R. G. H. 1953. A survey of coniferous forest succession in the eastern Rockies. Forestry Chronicle. 29: 218-232. Fire moss is often replaced by flowering plants in later stages of succession. In the black spruce (''

Picea mariana ''Picea mariana'', the black spruce, is a North American species of spruce tree in the pine family. It is widespread across Canada, found in all 10 provinces and all 3 territories. It is the official tree of the province of Newfoundland and Labr ...

'')-lichen woodlands of Alaska and Canada, the first stage of revegetation, which lasts from 1 to 20 years, is dominated by pioneer mosses such as fire moss. Fire moss continues to increase in the early part of the shrub stage but begins to decrease toward the end of this stage.Viereck, L. A.; Dyrness, C. T. 1979. Ecological effects of the Wickersham Dome Fire near Fairbanks, Alaska. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-90. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. Fire moss will colonize burned areas through lightweight, off-site, wind-dispersed spores.Crane, M. F.; Habeck, James R.; Fischer, William C. 1983. Early postfire revegetation in a western Montana Douglas-fir forest. Res. Pap. INT-319. Ogden, UT: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station. High-severity fire, which exposes mineral soil, provides ideal conditions for the germination of fire moss spores. Fire moss is often the dominant vegetation for several years following high-severity fire. It produces few spores late in the first postfire year and many in the second. If fire takes place in early spring; gametophores can develop in 4 to 5 months. If the fire takes place in the fall, colonization is slower.

References

This article incorporates text from the following source, which (as a U.S. government work) is in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...

: Tesky, Julie L. 1992
"Ceratodon purpureus"
Fire Effects Information System. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory.

External links

USDA Plants Profile
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1752834 Dicranales Bryophyta of New Zealand Flora of the South Sandwich Islands Flora of the Antipodes Islands