Abstract
Birds are known to act as potential vectors for the exogenous dispersal of bryophyte diaspores. Given the totipotency of vegetative tissue of many bryophytes, birds could also contribute to endozoochorous bryophyte dispersal. Research has shown that fecal samples of the upland goose (Chloephaga picta) and white‐bellied seedsnipe (Attagis malouinus) contain bryophyte fragments. Although few fragments from bird feces have been known to regenerate, the evidence for the viability of diaspores following passage through the bird intestinal tract remains ambiguous. We evaluated the role of endozoochory in these same herbivorous and sympatric bird species in sub‐Antarctic Chile. We hypothesized that fragments of bryophyte gametophytes retrieved from their feces are viable and capable of regenerating new plant tissue. Eleven feces disk samples containing undetermined moss fragments from C. picta (N = 6) and A. malouinus (N = 5) and six moss fragment samples from wild‐collected mosses (Conostomum tetragonum, Syntrichia robusta, and Polytrichum strictum) were grown ex situ in peat soil and in vitro using a agar Gamborg medium. After 91 days, 20% of fragments from A. malouinus feces, 50% of fragments from C. picta feces, and 67% of propagules from wild mosses produced new growth. The fact that moss diaspores remained viable and can regenerate under experimental conditions following the passage through the intestinal tracts of these robust fliers and altitudinal and latitudinal migrants suggests that sub‐Antarctic birds might play a role in bryophyte dispersal. This relationship may have important implications in the way bryophytes disperse and colonize habitats facing climate change.
Highlights
Bryophytes are considered the direct descendants of the earliest forms of plants on Earth and are found anywhere from the tundra to the tropical rainforest
We propose that both avian species have the potential to serve as dispersal vectors for bryophytes in the sub-Antarctic through endozoochory
Five of the nine (56%) fecal fragment inoculations treated to the peat soil treatment and all three (100%) inoculations of fragmented wild mosses in the solid agar Gamborg medium showed vegetative growth
Summary
Bryophytes are considered the direct descendants of the earliest forms of plants on Earth and are found anywhere from the tundra to the tropical rainforest. They are typically associated with temperate forests, peatlands, tundra, and alpine regions (Goffinet et al, 2012). With climate change as a growing concern for high-elevation and high-latitude habitats, and the large proportion of bryophyte endemism in high-latitude regions Climate change is causing an upslope shift in montane plant and animal communities (Elsen & Tingley, 2015; Freeman et al, 2018) that is driven by niche conservatism, which is the retention of ancestral ecological characteristics, such as a habitat, by a species. Species are more likely to respond by “following” their niches or ancestral climate regime rather than adapting their climatic tolerances (Wiens & Graham, 2005), which may represent a challenge for sessile organisms such as mosses
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