Emily Chan
The researchers determined that while under the snow, Takakia goes dormant for eight months out of the year and completes all of its growth during the three to four months when it receives light.
They also compared Takakia with other mosses to see how well it held up against high amounts of UV light.
The hardy moss remained unharmed, but the others started to die within 72 hours. A plant biotechnologist with the University of Freiburg in Germany named Ralf Reski said that the moss produces “high amounts of metabolites like flavonoids and polyunsaturated fatty acids to protect against radiation.”
Furthermore, the team compared live samples of Takakia with fossils from 165 million years ago. They found that although the moss evolved to thrive in the mountains, its physical appearance has remained the same throughout all that time.
“Although the Takakia genome is evolving so rapidly, the morphology has not changed recognizably for more than 165 million years,” said Reski.
“This makes Takakia a true living fossil. This apparent contrast between unchanged shape and rapidly changing genome is a scientific challenge for evolutionary biologists.”
Still, their speed seems to be no match for climate change. The researchers documented an average temperature increase of almost half a degree Celsius per year in Takakia’s habitat.
At the same time, the coverage of Takakia in their sample sites is decreasing at an alarming rate—1.6 percent per year—faster than four other mosses in the region.
The trend is expected to continue, and the researchers predict that by the end of the 21st century, the moss could be extinct. In the meantime, scientists are transplanting Takakia to other places in Tibet in the hopes that it will continue to grow there.
“Takakia has seen the dinosaurs come and go. It has seen us humans coming. Now, we can learn something about resilience and extinction from this tiny moss,” concluded Reski.
