[Pollinator] Small insects transport moss sperm

[Peter Bernhardt]

We think of insects as this planet's primary transporters of pollen but
hundreds (thousands?) of plant species enjoy sexual reproduction without
making a single grain of pollen, cone or flower.  Over the last six years
some authorities have noted that mites and spring-tails carry the sperm of
some moss species.  Does this occur because these little arthropods like to
live in moist, moss beds or do mosses produce something to attract them?
 Since mites and springtails are "visually challenged" there should be a
scent cue.  Please go to the link below and read the Abstract.  Popularized
accounts of this research are now on other websites as well.  If mosses
employ odor as a common attractant to turn arthropods into sperm taxis some
important, college text books on introductory botany will have to make an
addition.  Could this also mean that the haploid, bisexual, prothallus
stage in the life-cycle of most ferns does the same thing?

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature11330.html

Peter Bernhardt
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