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1. Crossroads of assembling a moss genome: navigating contaminants and horizontal gene transfer in the moss Physcomitrellopsis africana

   https://doi.org/10.1093/g3journal/jkae104  

   Vuruputoor, Vidya_S; Starovoitov, Andrew; Cai, Yuqing; Liu, Yang; Rahmatpour, Nasim; Hedderson, Terry_A; Wilding, Nicholas; Wegrzyn, Jill_L; Goffinet, Bernard; Ingvarsson, ed., P. (May 2024, G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics)

   Abstract The first chromosome-scale reference genome of the rare narrow-endemic African moss Physcomitrellopsis africana (P. africana) is presented here. Assembled from 73 × Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) long reads and 163 × Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI)-seq short reads, the 414 Mb reference comprises 26 chromosomes and 22,925 protein-coding genes [Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Ortholog (BUSCO) scores: C:94.8% (D:13.9%)]. This genome holds 2 genes that withstood rigorous filtration of microbial contaminants, have no homolog in other land plants, and are thus interpreted as resulting from 2 unique horizontal gene transfers (HGTs) from microbes. Further, P. africana shares 176 of the 273 published HGT candidates identified in Physcomitrium patens (P. patens), but lacks 98 of these, highlighting that perhaps as many as 91 genes were acquired in P. patens in the last 40 million years following its divergence from its common ancestor with P. africana. These observations suggest rather continuous gene gains via HGT followed by potential losses during the diversification of the Funariaceae. Our findings showcase both dynamic flux in plant HGTs over evolutionarily “short” timescales, alongside enduring impacts of successful integrations, like those still functionally maintained in extant P. africana. Furthermore, this study describes the informatic processes employed to distinguish contaminants from candidate HGT events. 

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2. Younger Dryas and early Holocene climate in south Greenland inferred from oxygen isotopes of chironomids, aquatic Moss, and Moss cellulose

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2022.107810  

   Puleo, Peter J.K.; Masterson, Andrew L.; Medeiros, Andrew S.; Schellinger, Grace; Steigleder, Regan; Woodroffe, Sarah; Osburn, Magdalena R.; Axford, Yarrow (November 2022, Quaternary Science Reviews)
3. Advanced vascular function discovered in a widespread moss

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-020-0602-x  

   Brodribb, T. J.; Carriquí, M.; Delzon, S.; McAdam, S. A.; Holbrook, N. M. (March 2020, Nature Plants)
4. Moss phyllid morphology varies systematically with substrate slope

   https://doi.org/10.5091/plecevo.2021.1839  

   Turberville, Caleb M.; Fuentes-González, Jesualdo A.; Rogers, Sydney; Pienaar, Jason (November 2021, Plant Ecology and Evolution)

   Background and aims – Tracheophyte leaf morphology is well studied but it is unclear if the findings generalize to poikilohydric plants. We tested combinations of hypotheses to determine if microhabitat characteristics, including light exposure, moisture availability, and substrate slope, controlled for morphological differences between upright and prostrate growth forms, affect phyllid surface area and costa length of mosses.Material and methods – We quantified mean phyllid surface-area and costa lengths for four replicates of 38 moss species from Alabama. Phylogenetic comparative methods that model adaptation were used to evaluate the relative evidence for each hypothesis using information criteria. To further explore mechanistic explanations involving substrate slope, we tested whether mosses on vertical substrates differed from those on horizontal substrates in the average amount of water-retaining, nutrient-rich litter they accumulated.Key results – Substrate slope and growth form combined were the best predictors of phyllid surface area. Mosses growing on vertical substrates exhibited smaller phyllid surface area for both growth forms. Although growth form and phyllid length best explained costa length variation, a more complex model including substrate slope performed nearly as well. Within the prostrate growth forms, species growing on vertical substrates exhibit longer relative costa than those on horizontal substrates. We also estimated rapid rates of adaptation for both traits.Conclusion – The smaller phyllid surface area of both upright and prostrate growth forms is possibly an adaptive response to reduced habitat moisture-retention or nutrient quality that vertical substrates offer. The longer costa lengths of prostrate mosses growing on vertical surfaces relative to prostrate mosses on horizontal surfaces, possibly make up for the decreased ability of smaller phyllids to rapidly reabsorb water when it is available. Further work is required to determine if it is truly substrate slope itself that matters or other variables associated with the differences in slope, and to determine how general this phenomenon is. 

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5. Novel bacterial lineages associated with boreal moss species

   https://doi.org/10.1111/1462-2920.14288  

   Holland‐Moritz, Hannah; Stuart, Julia; Lewis, Lily R.; Miller, Samantha; Mack, Michelle C.; McDaniel, Stuart F.; Fierer, Noah (August 2018, Environmental Microbiology)