title: Microarthropods mediate sperm transfer in mosses.
abstract: Among flowering plants, animals commonly act as pollinators. We showed that fertile moss shoots attract springtails and mites, which in turn carry moss sperm, thereby enhancing the fertilization process. Previously, fertilization of mosses was thought to depend on the capacity of individual sperm to swim through a continuous water layer. The role of microarthropods in moss fertilization resembles the role of animals as pollinators of flowering plants but may be evolutionarily much older because of the antiquity of the organism groups involved.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology, Lund University, S-223 62 Lund, Sweden. Nils.Cronberg@ekol.lu.se
authors.forename: Nils
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Cronberg
authors.forename: Rayna
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Natcheva
authors.forename: Katarina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hedlund
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001181:Arthropods / Q000502:physiology*; D019068:Bryopsida / Q000502:physiology*; D008925:Mites / Q000502:physiology*; D051479:Plant Infertility; D012098:Reproduction