Sphagnum Spores Germination
Sphagnum Sporophytes Spores Germination
Written 14th of November 2017 by Koen Claeys
Hello Sphagnum-enthousiasts! Last spring (2017) I had my first sporophytes on Sphagnum. They appeared on Sphagnum fimbriatum, a monoicous species. This means a single plant can produce both male and female reproductive cells (Both eggs and sperm cells). In order to have sporophytes on the dioicous Sphagnum species, you would need both a female and a male clone, but not for this S. fimbriatum. I decided to do a little experiment and grow Sphagnum from spores. While looking in the literature I read this article: 'Habitat requirements for establishment of Sphagnum from spores' (Sundberg et al., 2002). The authors found out that Sphagnum spore germination is limited by nutrients (phosphate). This means that Sphagnum spores germinate on places where there are more nutrients then where adult Sphagnum plants occur (usually nutrient-poor soils). I decided to do the experiment in three different setups. 3 small containers with blonde peat that has been cooked to kill all spores present. In one I added fertilzer but no spores, in the other I added spores of S. fimbriatum but no fertiliser and in the last one, both spores and fertilser (really low amount) was added. The experiment started somewhere halfway june 2017. Now we are 5 months further. Cooking the peat seemed effective as no growth is observed in the container without sown spores. Also the outcome of this little experiment is perfectly in line with Sundberg et al.: not a single spore germinated on bare peat without any nutrients available.
This is how the containers looked like 5 months ago:
How they look like today (the container on the bottom contains nutrients and spores, in both others not a single plant appeared)
They are still not looking like adult Sphagnum, but last week I could watch them under a microscope and they show the typical characteristic hyaline cell structure like any other Sphagnum, so now I'm finally sure it's not a random moss.
