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Little animals spread sperm for smelly mosses
Sex-specific odors may entice springtails to kick off fertilization
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Google+Mosses really may be getting a reproductive boost by luring tiny animals to deliver plant sperm.
Male moss plants don’t make pollen, but instead send sperm off to try to swim through dew to find a female moss. Earlier research in dry lab containers showed that the sperm can hitchhike on mites and little arthropods called springtails. “The question was, but do they?” says Sarah Eppley, an evolutionary ecologist at Portland State University in Oregon.
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