These 'Resurrection Plants' Spring Back to Life in Seconds
Within seconds of rainfall, dried-up moss is revived after being dead for decades.
From
These 'Resurrection Plants' Spring Back to Life in Seconds
Season 2 Episode 2 | 2m 55sVideo has Closed Captions
Within seconds of rainfall, dried-up moss is revived after being dead for decades.
Rain falls and within seconds dried-up moss that's been virtually dead for decades unfurls in an explosion of green. The microscopic creatures living in the moss come out to feed.
From
Problems with Closed Captions? Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems with Closed Captions? Closed Captioning Feedback
These 'Resurrection Plants' Spring Back to Life in Seconds
Season 2 Episode 2 | 2m 55sVideo has Closed Captions
Rain falls and within seconds dried-up moss that's been virtually dead for decades unfurls in an explosion of green. The microscopic creatures living in the moss come out to feed.
From
Problems with Closed Captions? Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipSome living things, when faced with a drought, do more than just survive.
When water disappears, they can cheat death itself through a kind of resurrection.
Look closely at this tree, baked by the California sun.
It’s covered in moss.
And living in that moss is a microscopic animal called a rotifer.
When there’s no rain, the moss and the rotifers dry out.
The rotifers stop eating.
The mosses stop photosynthesizing.
They’re reduced to a pile of chemicals.
They can stay that way for years, even 100 years.
When the rain comes, the mosses spring back to life in seconds, using a rare ability.
Right before they dried out they wrote themselves a set of genetic instructions, so that if they ever got water again they could start producing proteins – and growing – right away.
Scientists call them “resurrection plants” and they hope to use their genes to engineer crops that could repair themselves after a dry spell.
So why do mosses work this way?
Well, here’s the inside of a blade of grass.
See those tiny tubes around the perimeter?
Those are for moving water up from its roots.
But mosses don’t have roots.
Their porous cells absorb water like a sponge, whenever it’s available.
For mosses and rotifers, it’s feast or famine.
When it rains, the water activates the rotifers’ metabolism and they need to fuel up.
They use the crown of cilia on their head to create a current to suck in all the algae and bacteria they can.
They grind this food up with their jaws.
See the jaws?
They look like a tiny beating heart.
Rotifers, mosses – they’re experts at living without water.
And maybe in this miniature “resurrection kingdom” researchers will find clues for how the crops we humans depend on might survive a dry Californian future.
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