Pleurozia purpurea
| Pleurozia purpurea | ||||||||||||
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Pleurozia purpurea |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Pleurozia purpurea | ||||||||||||
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Pleurozia purpurea is a moss from the Pleuroziaceae family.
description
The plant is brownish-red, elongated and segmented, almost worm-like in shape.
No sexual reproductive organs are known of the species, so it may only spread through vegetative reproduction. However, it also does not develop any brood bodies.
Together with Colura zoophaga , Pleurozia purpurea is the only moss so far in which zoophagy , i.e. the trapping and imprisonment of animals, has been proven. These are protozoa , but also larger multicellular animals such as nematodes or copepods , which are caught by the trap-like lower lobes of the flank leaves. It seems that chemotactic agents may be used for attraction.
It is not yet known whether the animals are also digested by the plant ( carnivory ), or whether the plant merely keeps them captive, offers them a habitat and absorbs the nutrients excreted by the animals and the decay products of deceased animals.
distribution
It is the only species of the genus Pleurozia that occurs in Europe . It occurs worldwide in Scotland , Ireland , Norway , the Faroe Islands , Alaska , the Himalayas and Guadeloupe . These disjoint occurrences are interpreted as residual occurrences in a formerly larger distribution area.
The plant lives in an oceanic climate, under frequent rain and in bright locations, on damp rocks, rubble or boggy soils, mostly in company with sphagnum .
literature
- Wolfgang Frey , Jan-Peter Frahm , Eberhard Fischer, Wolfram Lobin : The moss and fern plants of Europe (= small cryptogam flora . Vol. 4). 6th, completely revised edition. Gustav Fischer, Stuttgart et al. 1995, ISBN 3-437-30756-8 .
- Sebastian Hess, Jan-Peter Frahm, Inge Theisen: Evidence of Zoophagy in a Second Liverwort Species, Pleurozia purpurea. In: The Bryologist. Vol. 108, No. 2, 2005, ISSN 0007-2745 , pp. 212-218, JSTOR 20061089 .
- Barbara M. Thiers: A Monograph of Pleurozia (Hepaticae; Pleuroziaceae). In: The Bryologist. Vol. 96, No. 4, 1993, pp. 517-554, JSTOR 3243984 .
