Life under quartz: Hypolithic mosses in the Mojave Desert.

ABSTRACT: Several species of dryland cyanobacteria are known to occur as hypoliths under semi-translucent rocks. In the Mojave Desert, these organisms find refuge from intense solar radiation under milky quartz where moisture persists for a longer period of time than in adjacent soil surface habitat. Desert mosses, which are extremely desiccation-tolerant, can also occur in these hypolithic spaces, though little is known about this unique moss microhabitat and how species composition compares to that of adjacent soil surface communities. To address this question, we deployed microclimate dataloggers and collected moss samples from under and adjacent to 18 milky quartz rocks (quartz mean center thickness 26 ± 15 mm) in a western high elevation Mojave Desert site. Light transmission through Mojave qua

SUBMITTER: Ekwealor JTB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7375520 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature